


Don't Go Wasting Your Emotion (Lay All Your Love On Me)

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms, Blood and Violence, Colour Blind Crowley, Crowley Has Chronic Pain (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Demon Blood, Demon True Forms, Eldritch Horror Shit i guess, Fluff, Genderfluid Crowley, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Two dumbasses being dumb, if youve read Ruby then you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-07-12 10:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Staying in America, Crowley and Aziraphale get accustomed to their new relationship with one another, deal with the after affects of the previous events, and fate does pull them right back into Team Free Will's path.What's the worst that can happen with two angels, a demon, and two monster hunters?





	1. Lay All Your Love On Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This is the third part of a series, and if you haven't already, I highly suggest you read the other parts first; this part will have a lot of spoilers and references to the second part, so some of them won't make sense. Otherwise, feel free to continue!

"You continue to disappoint me time and time again, and I have had enough," he hissed, the words cold and brutal. Serpentine eyes glowed yellow in the dark, sharp and hateful as the demon glowered down at his victim. "I've done what I can for you and you've proven you are nothing but a pest to be exterminated."

Crowley lifted up the trowel in his hand and inched it threateningly close to the spinach plant that trembled helplessly beneath him. His other hand closed around it, tilting it slightly so he could position the point of the trowel right at the soil, and then...

"My dear, please stop traumatising your plants."

Aziraphale, whom Crowley had specifically made sure was asleep before sneaking out to his garden to do just what the angel was accusing him of, shuffled ever closer, pristine white slippers staying just as pristine despite the soil that should have stained them. 

Crowley froze, caught red-handed, and slowly lifted his head to look at Aziraphale over his shoulder. Even the plant in his hand seemed to lean to the side so it could see Aziraphale, or it simply gravitated to the angel who simply radiated love. One of his hands ran along Crowley's shoulder as he walked around his side, and the other ran down his arm, down his hand, and gently pried his fingers from around the plant. His fingers ran along the spinach plant gently and the plant all but leaned into his touch like a cat. If plants could purr, no doubt this one would.

"You're doing so good, little one," the angel cooed, smiling down. "Don't mind this old serpent. You keep growing big like you are; I'm so proud of you." Crowley hissed at the positive reinforcement the angel gave his plants - was he just trying to undermine Crowley's authority over his garden? - and he glared at him.

"Don't praise it!" He said. "It deserves to feel shame for its failure!"

"It is trying its hardest, my dear boy," Aziraphale tutted. "I knew there was something on your mind when we went to bed." 

Crowley's cheeks flushed as he was called out. Aziraphale's hands coaxed him back onto his feet and back towards their little cottage, leaving the spinach plant to stand tall, motivated with positivity. His garden just reeked of love now. 

"You said you needed spinach for dinner tomorrow; I was making sure we were getting the best damned spinach," he defended. He set the trowel aside on the closest flat surface he passed, and then he slid into one of the tall stools at their breakfast bar in the kitchen. Aziraphale pottered around the little bar and towards the kettle, filling it with water and then setting it on the stove to boil. He pulled down two mugs, set a teabag in each one and some sugar in each, then drummed his fingers along the countertop as he watched the kettle. 

"And we can do that without yelling death threats at the plants," said the angel. Crowley tipped his head side to side with a scowl fixed on his lips. The angel continued. "Do you remember what I said about how you talk to your plants?" He asked. Crowley narrowed his eyes at Aziraphale.

"Yes. And it's stupid."

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. The first time the angel had caught him yelling at his plants and then uprooting one, hissing about how he was going to make it pay for its failures, he had come up with this theory that Crowley 'projected' onto his plants. He took out his frustrations about himself and his fears and trauma out on the plants that he could be fully in control of, and Crowley vehemently denied that theory.

However, whenever he tended to his garden quietly or with a little bit of care (he had yet to praise his plants, but the lack of terrorising them counted) Aziraphale utterly spoiled him; whether it be indulging him in going somewhere he wanted to go, reading to him at night, surprising him with a new heat lamp and a lovely nesting area in the corner of the bedroom when he felt the need to coil beneath it as a snake, or with physical affection. And it would be a horrendous lie if Crowley said he did not love it. 

Aziraphale poured out their tea and then handed one mug over once it was complete, and Crowley took it with a muttered thanks. He crossed one leg over the other and cupped his hands around the mug of tea, breathing it in. "What time is it?" He asked, not bothering to glance at the ticking clock easily in his view. Aziraphale craned his neck to look at instead and then hummed.

"Shortly passed midnight, my dear." 

Crowley huffed in acknowledgement. Aziraphale stepped over, sliding into the stool beside Crowley. He sat in a way that his foot brushed against Crowley's calf. "Are you sleeping alright?" The angel asked absently. Crowley raised an eyebrow and then nodded. 

"Mhmm. Are you?"

"Well, you know I mostly read instead."

"Ah, yeah. Of course. That... that book. How is it?" 

Aziraphale hummed. "It's very good. It's a collection of old poems from the seventeenth century; you would like them, I think. I could read some to you!"

Crowley pursed his lips in thought then shrugged. "Why not," he said. He might not enjoy reading, but if Aziraphale was offering to read some (hopefully) good poetry to him in bed to lull him to sleep - for they both knew that was how it would go down - then he really wasn't one to turn him down. He took another sip of his tea and then sat it down, turning instead to regard Aziraphale. 

"How long until we can go home?" He asked with a pout. Aziraphale gave him a look. 

"I believe it's in our best interest to continue to watch the Antichrist, my dear," he stated. Crowley hissed in distaste.

"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled. "He's just acting like a normal kid."

"And maybe one day he won't," countered Aziraphale. Crowley shrugged.

"Not our problem."

"Crowley."

"What?" Crowley held his hands up in defence. "It isn't!"

"It could be," said the angel. Crowley tipped his head side to side with a scowl.

"Fine. Fine!" Crowley threw his hands up in the air. "We'll stay for even longer."

"How about we go shopping for more plants?" Aziraphale offered. He took a moment to sip his tea contently, then sat it down. "It'll keep you busy, huh?" 

Crowley huffed. "Alright," he agreed begrudgingly. "But we can't right now. It's midnight." 

"Of course," replied Aziraphale. He stood up, then, in a swift movement, and in a gentle grip he took Crowley's wrists and coaxed him to follow. Sitting in their living room, on the black couch - Crowley had wanted a leather one, Aziraphale had not. They met half-way and had a soft black one with many tartan cushions - and they melt into them easily. With a flick of his fingers, the curtains opposite them roll open to reveal the window and, beyond that, the clear night sky. Crowley crossed one leg over the other and didn't mind the warmth that radiated from where Aziraphale's thigh pressed against his. 

"I find that stars are very beautiful. They're very relaxing to look at on a clear night," mused the angel. Crowley spared him a brief glance.

"They are," he agreed with a small nod. "You can hardly see them in London. All that pollution."

"Shame, really."

Crowley glanced to his watch. A truly one-of-a-kind watch and completely unnecessary. He didn't need to know what time it was in twenty world capitals, nor did he need to know that it was Too Late in Another Place. The only relevant time he needed was that of their current location, but he did enjoy the continuous ticking and the simple knowledge of what time it was everywhere. 

"They've really kicked it up a notch these past few decades, huh?"

"They?"

"Humans."

"Ah. Of course. Yes, I suppose they have. Shame again, I suppose." Aziraphale pressed his lips together. "I'm afraid it would take more miracles than I'm capable of performing to fix that."

"Little out of my area of expertise too."

Aziraphale expelled a breath of air. Crowley took a moment to regard him, and then he turned his gaze back to the window. 

It had been a little over three weeks since they had departed from the Winchester's bunker. The three weeks had been blissfully peaceful. No Heaven, No Hell, no Lucifer, no Michael. Gabriel had shown up yesterday long enough for a cup of tea at Aziraphale's insistence and to make sure they had not died, and then he had left with a wink directed to Crowley. Crowley had started his garden to keep himself busy and, somehow, books had been stealing every available surface. Aziraphale had indulged in sleep for the first week, but had picked up his previous statement of not enjoying it, but nonetheless he had also taken to sitting in bed at night, reading some book or other while Crowley used him as a body pillow, leeching him of all body heat. The angel was always perfectly warm or, in the summer, perfectly cool. Crowley thought it was the best thing an angel could do; be able to control their body temperature. A miracle if he had ever heard of one.

Crowley thought the past few weeks had been, admittedly, rather nice. If one ignored the nightmares that plagued him when Aziraphale couldn't miracle them away, and the little paranoia he had whenever he saw a frog staring at him, then it was perfectly fine. Unnervingly fine. Aziraphale read his books and sometimes read him to sleep with his fingers carding through his hair, Crowley expanded on their garden, they went out to eat in some restaurants and Aziraphale learned some recipes of his own and cooked them some dinner. Occasionally, when Aziraphale went out to a nearby library or for food and Crowley didn't accompany him, he would switch on the heat lamp that Aziraphale had bought him, and he'd curl up as a snake beneath it and sleep the day away. Once, Crowley woke up to Aziraphale running a finger gently down his scales. He had pretended to sleep and the motion had eventually lulled him back down. 

Aziraphale had checked in twice with the Winchesters. They hadn't spoke for at least a week and a half, as things had calmed down and seemed to be staying calm, and they had not seen one another in person yet. Crowley was fine with that; he wasn't here to make friends. He had Aziraphale, and that was the only company he needed. 

"What are you thinking about?"

Crowley glanced back at Aziraphale and sat up a little straighter. "Nothing," he said. Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow at him and hummed. He let his gaze linger even when Crowley returned his focus to the window, pressing his lips together and tilting his head back. 

"Wonder what the next century'll be like," he offered. 

"Oh?"

Crowley shrugged. "I mean, yeah. 'S been a while since the likes of, like, the seventeenth century. Things keep changing down here. Wonder what it'll be like in a century."

Aziraphale tipped his head to the side, staring at the wall as if it would show him the future. Then he shrugged slightly, shoulder brushing Crowley's. "Who knows, my dear boy. They keep going on about flying cars - perhaps they'll happen. I much preferred the eighteenth century."

"That's because you're old fashioned."

Aziraphale gave Crowley a both confused and disgruntled look, shifting on the couch. "I am not. But they invented Newspapers back then, and that was a splendid creation. And there was no such fuss with - with traffic, and mobile telephones. It was simpler."

Crowley gave him a sceptical look. "And there was that revolution. That famine in Ireland, too. Everyone _smelled_ , angel. There was that time I almost got sold in a wife auction, too - they were common." He made a face; wrinkled his nose and scowled. "Rotten food, all those diseases, toilets didn't really catch on until the end of that century - did you ever visit a dentist then? It was basically _torture_ -"

"Russia abolished slavery, which was _good_. And there was no talk of teleportation-"

"That's because you were still thought of as a witch if you _did_ speak of that-"

Aziraphale huffed in defeat and Crowley smirked. "Look to the future, angel. You'll still have your books, but you'll have your books and proper hygiene!"

Aziraphale didn't look necessarily pleased at losing the point he was trying to make, justifying his old soul, and Crowley slumped back into the seat with a self satisfied smirk. "Don't worry about it, angel. It'll be fine," he drawled, patting his shoulder. Aziraphale frowned.

"Yes, fine," he sighed. "I suppose so. But still; are flying cars necessary?"

Crowley shrugged. "I'll stick with my baby," he simply said, eyes flicking to the window in which he could see his Bentley outside. His lips twitched upwards at the sight. "There'll be air traffic, too. It'll take you hours to get from London to Spain via wings."

Aziraphale let out a groan at the mere thought. In another plane of existence, his wings twitched and his feathers ruffled. "There has to be a place on Earth that humans have yet to find," he uttered sarcastically. Crowley tipped his head side to side.

"I'm not really partial to living at the bottom of the ocean, but it is possible. Or just..." He waved a hand. "Run away to Canadian wilderness. Buy a large plot of land in the Scottish highlands. Russia." 

Aziraphale frowned and looked down at the floor, his thumbs twiddling on his lap. "I really could just go for another century or so of some blissful peace and quiet," he muttered dreamily. Crowley snorted. 

"You and me both. You know, right about now would be a good time for a television," he commented. Aziraphale gave him a look. They had had this discussion for the past fortnight; Crowley arguing that they should get a television and Netflix, Aziraphale arguing that it wasn't necessary. Neither of them really watched television, although Crowley was more partial to a nice movie, and he thought it would have been a good way to pass the time. Plus, he was sure that Aziraphale was a rom-com kind of guy. Either that or grim yet accurate documentaries. Crowley had a suspicion that Aziraphale could easily have some morbid interests if it was nonetheless educational. 

"Neither of us hardly use a television, Crowley. It would take up space and ruin the room," Aziraphale argued, shaking his head.

"It would not," drawled Crowley in response. "Could get a little one. Mount one on the wall." His hand waved to his left and upon the wall appeared a flat screen, turning on to the Netflix home screen. Aziraphale glared at him and waved his own hands and it was gone again, replaced with a painting of a horse.

"No."

"I think yes."

" _No_."

Crowley pouted at the angel, rolling his eyes dramatically. His arms folded across his chest and he fully intended to sulk for the next few hours, but Aziraphale stood up, making to leave the room.

"Oi, where are you going?" Crowley asked quickly, reaching out to snatch his wrist. 

"I was going to read," answered the angel, raising an eyebrow and looking almost smug. Crowley huffed.

"Well, don't be selfish. Bring your book here."

Aziraphale's lips twitched upwards and he nodded once. He disappeared for a brief moment, coming swiftly back with his book clutched in his hands. He slumped back against Crowley and, once the demon had settled himself comfortably around him, he began to read from where he left off. 

Eventually, one of Aziraphale's hands drifted absently, fingers parting through Crowley's hair, and when he fell asleep he had no nightmares that night.

Crowley woke up to Aziraphale shaking him gently. Blinking his eyes open blearily, he offered a questioning look.

"I'm just going to pop to the shop," he said, "need to buy a couple of things for lunch, I shouldn't be long, my dear."

"Oh, alright." With a grunt, Crowley pulled himself into a sitting position. He realised a blanket had been draped over himself and he caught it before it fell to the ground. "Uh, have fun, I guess."

Aziraphale smiled at him, nodded, and then he lingered with a bit of hesitation. Then his head ducked and he pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, and then scurried out of the door. Crowley blinked a few times, his cheeks warm, and then he smirked to himself and slumped back onto the couch.

Affection was still a thing the two of them danced around. Crowley did not mind wrapping himself around the angel at night, for the angel was warm and soft and radiated security and safety, and there was no better way to fall asleep at night. But outwardly expressions of affection were still few; for an angel and a demon didn't indulge in such human things. Crowley thought that the kiss they had shared was less important than the way Aziraphale had groomed his wings, in terms of immortal celestial-occult being affection. Not that Crowley didn't absolutely love the human shows of affection; they made him just as giddy with adrenaline, as if they were doing something taboo and forbidden. Which, really, they were.

Crowley decided he did not mind any affection Aziraphale was willing to show him. Not at all. Not one bit. 

Eventually, the demon peeled himself off the couch with the thought that he really ought to be productive. Then he thought that he was immortal and had many, many years to be productive, and he almost went right back to sleep. But no; seize the day, as someone had once said.

With a simple thought, his silk pyjamas turned to his usual apparel, and he occupied himself by using his own hands to tidy the house. He straightened the pillows up, folded the blanket and set it out neatly over the back of the couch. He dusted the shelves and Aziraphale's random ornaments and nick-knacks, groomed the flowers on the breakfast bar and dried their teacups from the night before (for Aziraphale had cleaned them and set them to dry) and he went out picked at the weeds out by their front door. 

Aziraphale didn't take long. He greeted Crowley, still working away at a stubborn patch of weeds, with a caress on his shoulder. 

"Since when did we have weeds here?" The angel asked, lingering for a moment. Crowley glanced up at him, shrugging. 

"Dunno. Too long, probably." He glanced to the shopping bags hanging from his hands. "How much did you need for lunch?" He asked, eyebrows raising. Aziraphale blushed slightly and slipped towards the door, avoiding the question. Crowley let him go, not pestering about it but making sure to give him a knowing look. Aziraphale had just smiled and then disappeared inside to unpack.

Weeds down, Crowley slid inside the house. Aziraphale was finishing putting the last of his groceries away, perking up at the sight of Crowley. 

"Do wash your hands before lunch, dear," he said. Crowley raised an eyebrow.

"Lunch isn't even ready yet," he pointed out.

"Well, I know that. But when it _is_."

"Yeah, yeah, I will, angel." He waved him off. "I'll be in the garden, yeah?"

"I'll call you for lunch."

Crowley shot him a thumbs-up over his shoulder, then swaggered out to his garden. He shot a pointed look towards the spinach plant he had been caught traumatising earlier, but passed it for now. They all needed weeding, and a good thorough check over, and a good misting, too. He got to work, the sun beating down on him in a way that made him grateful for the intermittent shade the trees around him gave him. Without it, he feared he might be forced to wear short sleeves. That hadn't happened since the eighteenth century, and he was determined not to make it happen again.

A car drove up to their cottage. He could hear the familiar engine from the back garden, feel the aura that accompanied Castiel, and he didn't make to go inside and greet them. He heard Aziraphale scurry to the door, greet them with shock and pleasantries, and invite them inside because of course he would. 

If he heard them come bearing news of any danger, Crowley would march in their and throw them out. He was not ready to have his gentle peace broken so quickly. 

He tuned them out. He pulled out a weed and chucked it aside. He inspected a leaf and muttered a praise when the plant was excellent. He misted over some and checked the soil of others. A Tupperware container appeared out of nowhere, and he plucked the strawberries and raspberries off their plants and stored them inside, planning to wash them whenever the Winchesters and Castiel left. He pulled a pack of flower seeds from his pocket that hadn't been there previously, and he got to work planting them in a perfect line. 

_"Oh, yes, he's just out in the garden. I ought to go bring him in, I don't think he knows you're all here."_

Crowley snorted under his breath. Well, he could only put off seeing them for so long, he thought sourly.

_"He does like to garden. He's been out there a while now; I've not even heard him yell at the plants. That's always a good sign."_

Crowley's lips curled slightly and he spared a brief glance to the door. He could see Aziraphale's silhouette in the window, hovering by the door as he rambled with the others. Crowley turned to the spinach plant and brought forth the tension in his muscles.

"Oh, don't think I've forgotten about you," he hissed, turning his mischievous grin into that of an angry scowl. Almost immediately, the plant recoiled and began to tremble; as did the other surrounding ones. He stalked towards it, replacing his plant mister with a trowel instead. "No angel to save you now. This wouldn't happen if you could just _grow_ _better_!"

He stabbed the trowel into the soil and began uprooting it, eyes flashing. He had forgone his sunglasses - he often did, considering it was only ever himself and Aziraphale around - and it only served to make the plant's terror increase, much to Crowley's pleasure.

He let all his tension bleed out, taking it out on the poor plant while hissing increasingly morbid threats and insults. 

Aziraphale's feet tapped on the ground as he approached with a frown. "What have I told you about insulting your plants, dear?" He sighed, hand on his shoulder. Crowley shrugged carelessly. 

"Deserves it," he simply said, looking at the half-uprooted plant. Aziraphale gave him a sceptical look. 

"We can talk about that later. We have visitors!"

"Oh, really?" Crowley raised his eyebrows innocently. "I had no idea."

"Yes! The Winchesters and Castiel are here. I've offered them lunch, but they said they needed to talk. You should come in," insisted Aziraphale. Crowley heaved a dramatic sigh and then set the trowel on the ground. He jabbed a finger at the spinach. 

"I'll come back for you," he hissed, bared his fangs, and then followed Aziraphale inside.

Sure enough, the troublesome trio were sitting around their living room. Sam and Dean had accepted cups of coffee, and Castiel had forgone one, choosing to sit with his hands folded on his lap and his back straight. 

"Sup," Crowley greeted with a two finger wave, swaggering in and throwing himself on the couch. He only shifted slightly to allow Aziraphale to sit down next to him. 

"It's, uh, nice to see you again," Sam greeted. Crowley raised an eyebrow.

"I'll agree or disagree depending on why you're here," the demon said. Aziraphale nudged him and gave him a scolding look. 

"He doesn't mean that."

"I do."

" _Crowley_ ," Aziraphale hissed through gritted teeth. Crowley flashed him a nose-wrinkling, sarcastic grin, and then turned to face the others.

"To what do I owe the pleasure? I'm assuming you're not here for Aziraphale's infamous lunch, after all."

"Unfortunately not," Sam admitted, eyes flitting down to the steaming coffee in his hands. "But we were wondering if we might be able to borrow your help."

"No."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale snapped sharply. He gave him a wide-eyed stare - and on another plane of reality, dozens upon dozens of eyes blinked open from his skin to do the same, a little flash of his grace - and his hands twitched over his lap and then smoothed down his thighs. "I am very sorry. He's been kept in for too long," he uttered. Crowley turned on the couch, looking up at the ceiling and spreading his legs out along the couch and along Aziraphale's lap. He offered no apology. Not that anyone expected one. 

Aziraphale's true form settled and he cleared his throat. "Of course you can. Whatever is the problem?" He asked, concern in his voice.

Gathering themselves from the bickering, Sam opened his mouth to speak only for Dean to interrupt him before he could even start.

His finger swayed accusingly between Crowley and Aziraphale. "Are you two... a...?"

"Dean," hissed Sam under his breath. He gave his brother a pointed look, and the older man simply shrugged innocently. 

"It was just a question," he muttered.

"We're immortal beings of immense power that could smite your souls, yes." Crowley offered an innocent grin. Aziraphale twitched.

"Crowley," he hissed, and caught his eyes. His look said; _what are you doing right now?_

Crowley shrugged. "We're here on business, don't get side tracked," he chastised, clicking his fingers and pointing at Sam. "What is it?"

Sam scrubbed a hand down his face. Crowley considered offering himself stronger than coffee; he looked like he needed it. "Angels," he said, and, well, had he started with that then perhaps Crowley might have been less of a cunt. Both he and Aziraphale stiffened and, albeit reluctantly, Crowley peeled himself up into a more respectable sitting position.

"What about that?" Crowley asked, voice low. His eyes flicked to the window. "Were you followed? Angel, pack up-"

"No, no, no - we weren't," Sam hurried to say, shaking his head. "It's not like that. Rather, uh. Angels have been killed." Aziraphale gasped a little, then looked shamefully down at his lap. "We don't know by who - or what - yet, but we were hoping that maybe you had heard something about this, or if it's something we should be really worried about."

Crowley and Aziraphale shared a look. Crowley shook his head. Aziraphale shook his head.

"I - I hadn't heard a thing," stammered the angel, his hands clasping together. Aziraphale looked at Crowley and furrowed his brow. "You don't think..."

"No," Crowley shook his head adamantly. "Surely not. They don't send messages; they'd have come straight for you and that would've been that." Although the idea of Heaven striking - yet again, and wasn't that ironic, that the angels, the good guys, had fought them more than Hell had - Aziraphale terrified him, Crowley would not let that happen. Not at all.

"I suppose you're right," Aziraphale said, offering a sigh of relief.

"I was thinking that it wasn't just angels, though," Sam added. "A lot of other creatures have been killed lately, but that could be other hunters, fights within those... communities, between them. Angels... aren't like that."

Both Crowley and Aziraphale nodded. While the likes of demons and werewolves, poltergeists and vampires were hunted by human hunters and one another alike, angels didn't. Angels didn't die; angels didn't get killed. If an angel got killed, especially one on Earth, then it was purposeful. Intended. Something potentially big. 

"I thought they might be connected, but I can't be sure," Sam said. 

"So you want us to help you find who's killing angels?" Crowley asked, eyebrows raised. "With two angels in your little party? That's a smart idea, huh."

"We do this kind of thing," Dean bit. "We wouldn't let them get hurt."

"You can't promise that," hissed Crowley, bristling. 

The image of Aziraphale, cheeks puffing out, eyes glowing, grasping at his stomach as Michael's lance speared him, flashed on his eyelids. 

Aziraphale's hand settled on his thigh, and Crowley hadn't realised that he had been standing up as if he had planned to do something. He blinked and composed himself, then sat down again.

"If it's connected, then it very well could affect you as well, my dear boy," murmured Aziraphale. "As... as long as we could be careful about this, I think that... perhaps we might be able to help... perhaps. I wouldn't want this getting out of control and coming to us," he said, glancing to Crowley. 

The demon grumbled something under his breath. "I s'pose," he muttered. As much as Crowley was a professional at procrastination and overlooking things, he wasn't willing to play with risks, and especially not now. If there was someone out there that could potentially end up hunting himself or, more importantly, Aziraphale down, then he didn't want to risk waiting until they were on their doorstep. 

Sam smiled encouragingly. "It would be mutually beneficial, I think," he said. Aziraphale nodded slowly, but his brow was pinched in thought.

Something dinged in the kitchen. He perked up.

"Oh! Well, please say we aren't in an immediate rush. We could discuss this over lunch, yes? I've certainly made enough."

Crowley snorted at that. So much for peace and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's not as heavy a plot as the second part to this series, so any wishes of some fluff and humour and dumbassery will be granted here! Of course, though, there will still be some angst, because otherwise it isn't a fic of my creation. But angst with dumbassery!
> 
> If you've been here from the other parts, I welcome you back for round three, and I hope you enjoy it!


	2. Hate To Spend The Night All Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update; holiday time and such, but here it is! Enjoy!  
> Sorry for spelling mistakes; it was written on my phone.

Aziraphale has certainly made enough lunch for all five of them. Whether it was a minor miracle or because he simply truly had cooked that much, Crowley might never know. (He never would.) 

The angel claimed the kitchen for himself until it was all done and he could come scurrying through with plates full of some fancy French dish. The grin of pride in his culinary skills even managed to guilt Castiel to venture into unfamiliar territory and eat. 

Crowley would be a horrendous liar if he said he thought it didn’t smell good.

”Good work, angel,” said the demon, glancing up from his plate. The angel in question looked up and smiled sweetly. 

“Why, thank you, my dear. I was afraid that I had forgotten the recipe after all these centuries,” Aziraphale admitted. 

“You hardly forget anything,” replied Crowley. Aziraphale’s smile turned to a self-satisfying smirk.

”I suppose you’re right.”

They had eaten in relative peace. It seemed everyone had to admit that the food was delicious and they all savoured it, not wanting to disrupt such a scene with talk of violence. 

“It was very good,” said Sam. “I didn’t think angels ate, let alone cooked.”

”They don’t,” said Crowley. “Only that one does.”

”Well, humans come up with such delicious treats, I can’t help but indulge.” Aziraphale returned to looking at his lap with a slight pink dusting to his cheeks. 

“You ever tried pie?” Dean inquired. Sam sighed, Castiel rolled his eyes subtly, Crowley raised an eyebrow and Aziraphale lit up.

”Oh! Yes!” He enthused, nodding his head. “I’m particularly fond of cherry pie.”

”Good choice, good choice.” Dean nodded his head, seeming to thoroughly approve of Aziraphale’s choice. Then he swallowed down the last of what was still on his plate in an impressive feat. 

Only once all dishes had been transported to the sink did they sit back down and approach the elephant in the room.

”So. The angels.”

”The angels,” repeated Crowley. He sat up straighter, expelling with the motion a little hiss from between his teeth, and then he crossed one leg over the other, his toes tapping the air in random rhythm.

”How many have died - erm, been killed?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Four.” The answer came from Sam. Both Aziraphale and Crowley hissed and grimaced. 

“Do the humans know of the murders?”

”They think it’s a serial killer. The burned wing prints they leave behind is a pretty distinct tag.”

”He’s right about that,” Crowley muttered distastefully. “Perhaps this is just a case of Upstairs going haywire without Michael. Which, if it is, then we need to stay far away from it all.”

Castiel shook his head. “No. If that was the case, I would have heard something about it.”

”And I have doubt that the angels would suddenly come back to Earth to kill one another. There are plenty of other more suitable battlefields than Earth that they would have chosen first,” said Aziraphale. 

“Demons?” Sam asked, directing it to Crowley.

The demon in question huffed a sigh and folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t think so,” he finally decided. “Heaven and Hell _want_ to fight. We’d notice if they started fighting.”

”How?” Asked Dean. Crowley gave him a look.

”We’d know,” he insisted simply. “Have you not spoken to your fellow hunter buddies?”

Sam and Dean looked down guiltily. 

“Did you think you were the only ones? There’s a lot of you, you know.”

”No, we - we know. We just don’t talk to other hunters. We, eh. We find a lot of trouble, you could say,” Dean said.

Crowley scoffed. “I don’t doubt that.”

”Well, have you got any leads?” Asked Aziraphale.

”We were kind of hoping that either of you might know something,” Sam admitted. 

“Well, that’s just dandy,” Crowley snorted. 

“I suppose we ought to just keep an eye out for anything,” Aziraphale said.

”We were thinking of smoking out some other creatures,” Dean said. “Trap a de-“ Crowley raised an eyebrow. His eyes burned bright; reptilian, demonic. Dean stammered. “-werewolf, or something. See if they know anything.”

”Werewolves don’t know anything,” snorted Crowley. “You’re better finding some demon. They love gossip and dead angels.”

”Do you think that’s a good idea, my dear?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley raised an eyebrow at him. “Hell has yet to send someone after you. It might not be our best idea to give ourselves a reason for Beelzebub to send Hastur for you again.”

Crowley sighed. “Hastur wouldn’t wait for permission.”

It was surprising that no demon had come for Crowley yet, but he assumed that was due to Aziraphale’s convincing show in Hell. Even Hastur, sadistic, grudge-holding extraordinaire that he was, feared holy water and a demon it couldn’t kill.

Crowey wasn’t roaring to get Hell’s attention, either.

”Well, I said that _they_ could find a demon. _We_ can stay conventionally out of the room.”

”I suppose,” murmured Aziraphale, inclining his head slightly.

”Say it is demons,” Dean began, “a group of them. What are the chances?”

Crowley exhaled slowly, looking to the window. He tried to pull the likes of Hastur, Dagon and Beelzebub from his thoughts. They weren’t likely to run off and do such a thing. But the lower level, every day, run of the mill demon? Fuelled with rage from the Armageddon-That-Wasn’t? It was possible. Very possible.

He nodded. “‘S possible,” he admitted. “They might. I just think that Upstairs would have done something ‘bout it by now.”

”I guess without Gabriel - the fake one - and Michael, Heaven’s keeping quiet.”

Crowley’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t trust it.”

Brushing over it, Dean continued. 

“We might as well just go now. There’s a fair drive.” He glanced between Crowley and Aziraphale. “You coming with us?”

Crowey closed his eyes briefly. Did he want to? No. Should he? Probably. He looked to Aziraphale. The angel thought for a moment, then nodded. With a dramatic sigh, Crowley heaved himself to his feet.

”Fine. Sure, yeah. But I’ll take my own car,” he stated. 

Aziraphale locked the door behind them and in the Bentley, he and Crowley follow behind Dean, leading the way in his Impala. 

“Do you think it’s Hell’s doing?” Aziraphale asked. “Killing angels, and such.”

Crowley sighed and then shrugged, fingers drumming along the steering wheel. “I dunno,” he admitted. “Maybe. I just didn’t think many people knew how to kill an angel so easily.”

Aziraphale frowned and nodded at him. “Only other angels and demons.”

”Some hunters, too.”

Aziraphale’s brows furrowed questioningly as he looked at him. “What?”

”Some hunters,” repeated Crowley. “Well, at least Sam and Dean do. Maybe word’s getting out to hunters.” 

“You think hunters are doing this?” Aziraphale asked, shocked. Crowley shrugged.

”Just saying they might know how to,” he stated. “We’ll ask Sam and Dean about later, I guess. For all we know, it’s just angels fighting one another.” Neither of them really believed that, but they settled into silence after.

Crowley decided he hated how slow Dean was driving. Following the speed limit like they don’t have somewhere to be. If it was himself and Aziraphale, they would have already been there. Nonetheless, Crowley kept his thoughts to himself, settling on turning his radio up to distract himself.

Aziraphale commented how glad he was to be able to stretch his legs as soon as they did park, sliding into space in a busy town sometime in the afternoon. The Impala was parked on the other side of the car park, and everyone was clambering out of it, too.

”I say we find the John’s,” Dean grunted, locking his car and swaggering around it. Crowley grumbled something about humans once more as he and Sam hurried off into the nearest diner, leaving him, Aziraphale and Castiel to trail after them.

”Humans are odd,” Crowley grumbled. Weak little things that he could kill without breaking a sweat, and yet here he and two powerful angels were, following after them like pets. 

“I believe it’s just Sam and Dean,” Castiel commented, and Crowley snorted. 

The angel had never been Crowley’s biggest fan since their first meeting, one might say, all his knowledge about foul demons, damned little dirty creatures engrained into his brain, but Crowley thought that the angel was making an effort, which was nice, he supposed. Because Crowley, demon or not, was an ally, and not like any other demon.

”What is up with them?” Crowley asked as they slid into a large booth by the window, a waitress handing out menus that he and Castiel ignored. 

“What do you mean?” Asked Castiel.

”What’s their deal? They’re hunters. Got you all buddy buddy with them. There’s gotta be a story there.”

Aziraphale flicked through the menu. Castiel shifted and sighed.

”Their father was a hunter, and raised them so,” he explained. “A... a demon killed their mother when they were young, I believe.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Who?” He inquired curiously, leaning his elbows on the table.

”I’m not sure of his name,” Castiel said. He looked a little uncomfortable talking about it. “It doesn’t matter now-“

”Well, you’re not telling me something,” Crowley said. “And that makes me rather curious, you see. Who was it?” Behind his sunglasses, which he has grabbed from the glove box in his Bentley, his yellow eyes peered deeply into Castiel, bright with interest.

”I do not know who,” repeated the angel. “And I don’t believe I would tell you even if I did.”

”Oh, don’t be like that,” Crowley drawled, sitting back in his chair. “You say that like I’m going to go running to dear Beelzebub, all, ‘did you know a demon killed a human years ago?’” Crowley rolled his eyes. “But there’s a reason you’re not telling me. That’s what I want to know.”

Castiel glared at him, huffing and pressing his lips together. Aziraphale peered cautiously up from the menu, but kept his mouth shut. 

“The demon had yellow eyes.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Huh,” He said, scratching his neck. He looked at Castiel then sat up a bit. “Don’t look at me! I’ve not killed a human!” He defended, hands raised. He pointed a finger at Castiel. “And if you thought that, then you would have killed me already.”

”You’re correct,” Castiel said with a nod. He clasped his hands together on his lap and raised an eyebrow.

”There’s plenty of demons with yellow eyes,” replied Crowley. “None like mine, though. I don’t know.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Anyway, moving swiftly on. What else about them?”

Castiel gave him a look, but the tension died down.

”Their father, he... he-“

”Can I take your order sirs?”

A blonde waitress scurried up to their side, pink lips stretched into a smile. “Any drinks, or tea? Food?”

”No,” said Crowley, waving her away.

”Yes,” called Aziraphale, sitting up and giving Crowley a look. “Please.” He made an order, and then turned to Castiel. “Should we get Sam and Dean anything?”

”Oh.” Castiel sat up a bit, stiffly, and nodded. “Yes. Uh... two... two coffees. And... a salad. And pie. Please.”

“No problem,” said the waitress. “What kind of pie?”

Castiel looked confused. “Uh...”

”Cherry pie,” sighed Crowley, remembering his and Aziraphale’s bonding session over the pie a few hours ago.

”Sorry, sir, we don’t do that one, but-“

”Yes you do,” Crowley insisted, and he clicked his fingers. A look passed the waitress’s face, and suddenly cherry pie was on the menu. She noted it down and nodded.

”I’ll get that for you right away,” she said, taking back the menus and scurrying off.

Aziraphale looked conflicted between scolding Crowley and not. Crowley simply stretched his lips in a parody of a smile and returned to Castiel. 

“Their father?”

Castiel jumped easily back into the topic. “Died on a case. They got back together and have been hunting since. Dean...” He trailed off, looking conflicted and as if he regretted saying what he had. Crowley leaned forwards, and a human would have spilled the entire story at the temptation that rolled off Crowley. Castiel shifted. 

“What did Dean do?” Crowley purred. 

“What _did_ I do?” Sam and Dean were suddenly there, their approach surprisingly quiet. They slid into the booth, looking between Castiel and Crowley.

”I was just asking if you two had a story,” he said innocently. “Gotta be one to explain why you two ended up with a pet angel.”

Dean seemed rather offended by the insinuation that Castiel as their pet, for he glared at him. “We helped one another out. That’s all you need to know.”

Crowley shrugged, nonchalant. “Cool. We got you pie.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “What kind?”

”Cherry.”

”Didn’t know they did that here.”

Crowley drummed his fingers along the table. “They do now.”

”Trapping a demon advice, one-oh-one, from a demon, that you’ll never get in your life. Rule number one: don’t do it while I’m in the room.”

Dean rolled his eyes at Crowley, who was watching them slave away at painting the outline of a devil’s trap on the floor. They had driven further outside the town, standing instead by some forgotten barn. They had all their ‘tools’ around them; guns full of salt, bottles of holy water, that odd knife; everything that made Crowley on edge. 

He offered no help as they made their devil’s trap. It was the outline only, leaving the runes out just now. Maybe they wanted to summon a specific demon. 

“Are you alright with this, my dear boy?” Aziraphale asked, quiet. He glanced pointedly around at the holy water and the salt - they had put a line across the door, effectively stopping whatever demon they summoned from getting out should they trick them, but also effectively trapping Crowley in. But Aziraphale assured him he wouldn’t leave without him, and he trusted Aziraphale.

”Yeah, ‘course, I don’t care,” said the demon, waving a hand before setting it on his hip. Aziraphale didn’t look too convinced. 

“Seriously, are you going to give us advice or not?” Dean asked. Crowley shrugged. 

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Dean grumbled something about demons and Crowley grinned, then returned to inspecting his nails. 

“Just summon a demon and there you go,” he said, waving one hand. 

They began painting runes. Crowley’s foot tapped on the floor as he stared at the devil’s trap. They started chanting Latin off by heart, and Crowley watched. Then his eyes blew wide. He lunged forwards, throwing his hand out and yelling _‘wait!’_

He ran right into someone. Both he and the other person fell, dazed, and it took Crowley a moment to realise he was in the middle of the damn trap. With another demon.

He leapt to his feet, and so did the other demon. He was shorter than Crowley, with dark hair and a red tie. He eyed Crowley, and Crowley eyed him.

”Well,” said the other demon, “this is awkward.”

Crowley turned to the Winchester’s, fuming. “You wrote my go-damned name,” he hissed.

”We wrote his,” defended Dean, pointed at the other demon.

”What’s your name?” Crowley asked, whirling on him. 

“What’s yours?” Asked the demon, narrowing his eyes. 

“Crowley,” he said. The demon raised his eyebrows. 

“I’m Crowley,” said the other demon. Crowley’s eyebrows shot up.

”Crowley with an ‘ow’?” He said, incredulous. “That’s my damn name!”

”I think you’ll find that it’s mine,” sneered the other Crowley, rather amused. 

“I have had it since damned Golgotha, who the Hell else would call themselves Crowley? With an ‘ow’?”

”Who calls themselves Crowley with an ‘O’?” Retorted the other man. “And, technically, isn’t your name Crawley?” 

“I changed it at Golgotha, did you not hear me?” Crowley snapped, folding his arms across his chest. He turned to the others. “Let me out.”

”We need him in there,” said Dean. The other Crowley held his fingers up, crossed.

”I solemnly swear to not leave the circle while you let your pet snake out,” he droned. Crowley glared at him and hissed, pulling his lips back from his teeth to show off his fangs that grew a little with demonic intent. The other Crowley wasn’t fazed, rolling his eyes. His own eyes flashed red like hellfire, like a challenge, and if Crowley was an uncivilised demon then he might have punched him. But Crowley was civilised, and so was the other Crowley. 

Aziraphale looked rather stressed, teetering around as if he might try to sneak forwards and break the circle for Crowley to get out. His hands wrung nervously, especially as the two demons had a stare down. 

“So, to what do I owe the displeasure, boys?” Other-Crowley asked, turning to the Winchester’s. 

Accepting his fate in this circle, Crowley slid down until he was sitting, stretching his legs out as far as the circle allowed. Other-Crowley glared at him, huffing a breath and stepping over his legs.

”Angels have been killed,” said Dean. “We want to know who by.”

”And you thought I’d know?” Other-Crowley snorted. He turned to Crowley. “Lowered yourself to working with these guys?” He asked sarcastically. Crowley gave his sarcastic, all-teeth smile. 

“I think you do know something,” Dean said. Other-Crowley rolled his eyes. 

“Have I ever lied to you lot?”

”Lowered yourself to working with these guys, have you?” Crowley quipped from the floor. Other-Crowley glared at him and then stood on his hand. Crowley hissed, shoving him to the edge of the circle where it seemed he hit an invisible wall, teetering back in.

”Hell said you were a lot of trouble,” he grumbled.

Sam’s phone went. Pulling their attention to the human who blushed under the sudden attention, he even muttered an apology for the disruption and pulled it out, stepping aside. He muttered a few quick words, hung up, then walked to Dean’s side. Crowley picked up him whispering ‘he’s on his way’. He and Aziraphale and Other-Crowley shared a curious look.

“Can we stay on topic for five minutes?” Crowley groaned, looking Heavenwards as if the Almighty would lend him some patience. He looked to Other-Crowley. “Just tell us what you know so I can get out of this blasted trap.” 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Other-Crowley sneered. “What do I get for it?”

Dean held up a bottle of holy water. “Not this,” he said. Other-Crowley rolled his eyes. 

“We’ll let you leave free,” said Sam. “No chasing you. No smiting. As long as you tell us the truth.”

”Tempting offer, really. No.”

”Oh my - just tell them,” Crowley hissed miserably. 

“I will on the offer that you shut up.”

Crowley held up his pinky. Other-Crowley looked tempted to snap it. “Deal.”

”I’m afraid there’s not much to say,” admitted Other-Crowley. “But it’s not just angels. Everything that’s gone missing or killed is related. Not just angels. Dunno where or why or by who, and I’d rather keep it that way.” He paused, looking a little weary. “I think you’ll find it’s not what you expect.”

”And what the Hell does that mean?” Dean asked, eyes narrowed. Other-Crowley shrugged.

”Call it gut instinct,” he simply offered. “Now, that’s all I know. Everyone else with information ends up missing or dead, so this is the best you have. Now,” he waved a hand to the paint. “Let me out.”

Crowley scrambled to his feet, nodding eagerly. Dean hesitated, looking with Sam and then Castiel, seeming to have a silent conversation. Then Sam walked up, scrubbed out a line, and both demons tumbled out of the trap, stretching as if they had been cramped. It was hard to hold four wings in such a small space.

Other-Crowley was gone in an instant, disappearing.

”Thanks,” grumbled Crowley. “For trapping me in there.” He paused. “Again.”

”We didn’t know,” Dean defended.

”It’s my name!” Crowley exclaimed.

”We thought they were spelt differently!”

Crowley dropped his head into his hands and weighed the pros and cons of napping for another century. Instead, he gravitated towards Aziraphale, resisting the urge to place his head onto his shoulder. Aziraphale’s hand sought out his, though, squeezing apologetically, and Crowley linked their fingers contently. 

“Yeah, whatever,” muttered the demon. “Got what you need? Can we go now? Not just angels. Nice information. Helpful. Done here?”

They looked a little exasperated. Unsatisfied with what Other-Crowley has offered them. Sam turned to them.

”Have you got weapons? For defence?” He asked. “If it seems like something, or someone, is targeting supernatural beings... you might want to be on the lookout.”

Crowley thought about his demonic form. “Sort of,” he shrugged.

”I still have my sword,” said Aziraphale, peeking up.

”This time,” hummed Crowley teasingly. Aziraphale gave the demon a look and Crowley smiled pleasantly at him. The angel squeezed his hand. 

Sam and Dean gave one another a look. Sam raised an eyebrow and Dean didn’t look happy, but he sighed and pulled out his small pistol from where it had been tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He held it out to Crowley.

”Know how to shoot?” Dean asked. Holding the pistol gingerly, Crowley nodded.

”Of course,” he lied. He hadn’t held a gun for years. No one looked convinced. 

Sam took the gun back, flicked off the safety, and told him to shoot the window on the far wall.

Crowley’s tongue dashed out along his lips, and he decided he much preferred the idea of biting someone than shooting them. But, he thought, he probably looked cool. Standing in a deserted barn, with Aziraphale standing just behind him as if Crowley was his protector while he held the gun threateningly - no doubt he looked cool. 

Filled with some self confidence from the imagery, Crowley pulled the trigger.

The bullet thudded into the wall, not the window. 

“Close enough,” muttered the demon with a shrug.

To his shock, Aziraphale plucked the gun from his grip, checked the barrel, and shot the window.

Crowley stared at him. “What kind of moral arguments you been in?” He asked. Aziraphale smiled sheepishly.

”Remember that day - I think it was two thousand and three - that I had to leave early for a miracle?” He asked. “Well, uh, I had to interfere with some... gang troubles. I recognise the make,” he nodded to the pistol. Crowley’s has felt rather slack and he nodded dumbly, then stood up straighter.

”Right. Of course,” he muttered, shaking himself. 

“Well, at least one of you knows,” Dean commented. Crowley glared at him beneath his sunglasses, then stalked towards the door, heading to his Bentley, intending to be done for the day.

He stopped abruptly at the salt line. Glaring down at it, he willed it away. It stayed in place, taunting, mocking.

Aziraphale scurried to his side and waved it away into the wind. Crowley stalked to his car and slid right in, glaring out of the window.

”Do - Do give us a call!” Said Aziraphale. “Tonight, or if you find something, or want us to do something! Stay safe!” And with that, the angel joined him in the Bentley.

”You needn’t sulk off like that, dear,” said the angel. Crowley started the Bentley up, tearing off down the road so suddenly Aziraphale let out a sound and hurried to shove his seatbelt on. 

“It’s boring. I didn’t even want to help them anyway,” he said. “And they trapped me with another demon!”

”They meant no harm,” said Aziraphale hesitantly.

”The demon could have been Hastur and we would have been royally fucked.”

”Language, my dear,” chided the angel. Crowley turned a corner and he grabbed the handle above the window. “There _is_ a speed limit, you know!”

”Not for me,” muttered Crowley.

”For everyone, even you, you old serpent,” Aziraphale said, pressing himself flat into the chair. He took a few steadying breaths and then turned the radio on, letting Queen try and soothe his nerves as Crowley drove them towards town.

”I could teach you, you know.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “What?”

”How to shoot that gun. I’m not the best, admittedly, just with that make, but-“

”Yes.” Crowley shrugged. “I guess you better.”

Aziraphale smiled slightly. “I guess I better.”

Crowley decided to take a detour before they reached the town. Leaving skid marks on the road, he took a corner and followed it to where it became a country road between fields, then to a little parking spot before a trail into the woods. 

“Why are we here?” Asked Aziraphale curiously. 

“You said you wanted to teach my how to shoot that gun,” he said, “then let’s do it now.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows slightly before smiling, nodding. He fished the pistol out, then came right up to Crowley’s side. He put the gun in his hands and covered them with his own, positioning his fingers just so, his head on his shoulder and voice no more than a murmur, as if suddenly effected by the closeness. Crowley didn’t mind, certainly not, but a shiver ran down his spine.

Crowley tried to imagine Aziraphale in a position where he’d learn how to shoot a gun, and he just couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine it. And yet here he was, acting like a professional, taking Crowley through the ins and outs of how to reload it and turn the safety on and off, how to hold it, how to stand, feet spread, arms out, level, and his breath all warm on his neck.

He shot perfect, hitting the hanging branch Aziraphale told him to, and then he chucked aside the pistol on the grass and turned to Aziraphale who was grinning at him with a glint in his eyes, hands clasped together.

”Amazing, my dear,” he said, not bothering to spare a glance at the discarded pistol. “But I wouldn’t throw it so carelessly to the ground.”

”Safety was on,” muttered Crowley. He stepped close enough to Aziraphale that their stomachs touched and Aziraphale’s hovering hands rested on his chest. There was no resistance, no sign of the angel wanting space, and so Crowley seized the moment to lean down and catch his lips. The angel hummed pleasantly, fisting a hand in his collar and pushing himself up a little on his toes. 

Crowley decided they didn’t kiss as often as he would like.

”I didn’t know the thrill of being a hunter made you so... romantically inclined,” Aziraphale joked with a lopsided smirk. 

Crowley steadied his breathing and tipped his head to the side. “I’m plenty romantic, Angel,” he scoffed. Aziraphale smiled, patted his shoulder.

”Of course, my dear,” he replied, and Crowley raised an eyebrow questioningly. Aziraphale didn’t expand, however, but went to retrieve the forgotten pistol.

”We ought to get back,” he said. “Just in case the Winchester’s do need to phone us.”

Crowley heaved a sigh, but rounded his Bentley and got in as Aziraphale did.

”Yeah, whatever,” he grumbled. Aziraphale smiled at him, squeezed his hand, and looked out the window as Crowley began to drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unnecessary kiss? Maybe so. Were two Crowley’s necessary? No but I thought it was more funny than it really is. I also really just wanted Crowley to feel badass with a gun, but thought it funnier to make him a Dumb Bad Boy while Aziraphale could shoot a pistol. 
> 
> Anywho, I hope you enjoyed! If you did, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment; I love to hear what you think! <3


	3. Sleeve Cut Just Off The Shoulder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the late response; I'm very busy at the moment, so my updates will come whenever I can upload them. Thank you for understanding, I hope you enjoy!

“They wrote my damned name into a pentagram! How can a species be so infuriatingly stupid, angel?”

Aziraphale didn’t glance up from the book he was reading. One hand held the book up and the other hand was in Crowley’s hair. "They didn't mean it, my dear."

"It still happened! And what kind of demon has an 'ow' in their name? It automatically makes it sound like a damn hound's name."

"Yours is certainly more elegant, my dear."

"I said that we shouldn't do it while I was in the room."

"You definitely did, my dear."

"Who even is Cr _ow_ ley? I've never heard of him. Can't be that good - _bad_ of a demon."

"You're certainly the worst demon there is out there, my dear."

"He was so smug - did you see his wings? He purposefully kept trying to stretch them out. Smug bastard."

"He was."

" _And_ he _knew_ the Winchesters!"

That gave Aziraphale pause. He glanced up from his book, peering over the pristine pages to glance at the still-simmering demon sprawled out across the rest of the couch, his arms folded across his chest and eyes glaring at the ceiling.

"He did," he agreed. He marked his page in the book and closed it, setting it still on his lap. "That was interesting."

Crowley's eyes flicked briefly up to him, an eyebrow raising slightly. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. I s'pose." He shrugged his shoulders, as if he hadn't really thought much about the idea, but he had thought about it enough to deem it something that would arguably give the Winchester's a bad reputation. A thought snuck into his head, then, and the demon suddenly sat up; sliding his legs from over the edge of the chair's arm, placing his feet firmly upon the floor, and he turned to regard Aziraphale. "But," he said, leaning forwards over his lap, "that phone call, huh? You heard it. I think it's a trap. They're sketchy bastards, I think."

Aziraphale sighed, a comment about language dying on the tip of his tongue. He would have scolded it for him had he not also been considering the same thing - or, at least, a similar thing. He pressed his lips together, his eyes pinched, creased. "Yes, I did," he confirmed. "I was hoping it would just be another of their, em, _hunter friends_."

Crowley tipped his head to the side. "Dean said they didn't _have_ any hunter friends," he recalled. The tips of his fingers tapped thoughtfully along his chin and his eyes drifted from Aziraphale, turning instead to stare blankly ahead at the dingy motel wall across from him. Rather than returning to their cottage, Aziraphale had thought it wise to stay here for the night, just in case. Nothing had yet to happen, however, and Crowley was almost one-hundred-percent certain that the Winchesters and their angel had already left the town, heading back to their bunker - or to meet their mystery caller.

"Either way, I'm sure it shouldn't be any of our concern," Aziraphale assured. His hands smoothed down his lap, sliding his book forwards to set it on the coffee table, and then he rose in one fluid motion. He made an escape of the conversation by turning to the kettle, busying himself by setting it to boil and miracling a teabag into his mug.

"And if it is?" Crowley returned, turning to follow him with his eyes. 

"You surely don't think they want to hurt us now, of any things?" Aziraphale retorted with the shake of his head. Crowley pursed his lips and shrugged, hands held in defence.

"Who knows with humans."

Aziraphale gave him a look. "They do not," he insisted. He poured boiling water into his teacup, then followed it with a dash of milk. Stirred it, disposed of the teabag, then leaned his hips back against the counter and blew across the steaming surface of his tea. 

Crowley just let his sceptical expression linger on his face before looking elsewhere, expelling a long sigh hissed from between his teeth. Falling back into silence, he turned his attention to the window, the silhouettes of trees swaying in the wind outside. Aziraphale returned to the couch and reached for his book, setting it on the lap and running a hand down the cover. His eyes stayed distant, clouded with thought, and he seemed to have no intention of actually opening and reading his book. 

Brow furrowed, Crowley leaned slightly towards him. For a moment he just watched him, as if waiting for him to finally do something but the angel seemed deep in his thoughts. Crowley waved a hand. "Everything alright in there, angel?" He asked. Aziraphale blinked, eyes flitting towards him, and he smiled. Setting his tea down on the coffee table he shimmied backwards on the couch until he was comfortable, crossed one leg over the other, opened his book. Then he said;

"Yes, quite. I was just... thinking."

Crowley snorted. "Well, obviously. About what?"

Aziraphale's finger ran down the page, top to bottom, then dipped beneath it at the corner and turned it over. "I don't much fancy the title 'hunter'. I think it sounds rather... barbaric, almost. At least from the point of view of the hunted."

Crowley hummed in thought at that, his eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "I mean, yeah. But it's not as if the supernatural world's done itself any favours, huh? Remember..." His hand tickled along his jaw in thought, his tongue dashing out briefly to wet his lips. "Remember, like. A bit before Christ; the Caimbeulach pack in Scotland was..." He blew out a long breath. "Impressive."

"Then there was that war with the vampires..." Murmured Aziraphale. Crowley nodded.

"Mhmm. But even they had their own vast kingdom, too," he said. "Impressive lot, really. But that's the point - back then; kingdoms. Entire, what - empires? Would you call that an empire? - between things like that. Even - even faeries had half the highlands and half of Ireland. But it was sophisticated." Crowley paused, his lips tugging upwards. Aziraphale's eyes narrowed at him slightly. "Very sophisticated. Did I ever tell you I got invited to drink with the alpha? I did. And it was bloody sophisticated. Nowadays? I could throw a stick for a werewolf. They aren't exactly impressive creatures now, let alone something to scare hunters away from them."

Aziraphale sighed and nodded. "But does it not make you think?" He asked, glossing over the talk of werewolves. 

"Think about what?" He asked. 

"Think about... say, a couple of centuries in the future. Maybe not even that far." Aziraphale looked a little anxious, suddenly. He kept a hand splayed out on the pages of his book to keep his place, but his eyes were now settled on the cup of tea sitting on the coffee table in front of him. "All humans find out about the supernatural." His mouth opened but he paused, face twisting. "Well, hunters already know about demons," he muttered.

"Hunters, teenagers inspired by horror movies, priests, the random person on the street that isn't any of those but still believes they can exorcise demons," Crowley listed, the words tumbling off his lips as if he was bored. He slouched in the seat, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. "Turn a corner and someone's trying to exorcise me. Failing, but trying nonetheless." Truly, too many humans were obsessed with demons, he thought. Not even including the likes of priests and monks and such, but the superstitious person or foolish teenager; he had many incidents in which they had gotten a few words in Latin correct, enough so that he could feel it. By them, never enough to actually _force_ him to go to them, but he did if he was bored. Teased them for a while whilst they sprayed him with holy water bought off Amazon, then caused the lights to smash, or a storm to brew, then he'd disappear and leave them even more unsure of the supernatural. 

He had heard stories of demons caught by actual hunters; nothing pleasant. Kicked back to Hell without a body, or left trapped in a place for decades, centuries, forgotten, found with skin melted from holy water - but never quite holy enough to kill them - and lungs non-existent from sage. The amount of demons finding themselves in bad situations with hunters was only increasing as of late, and it would be a lie if Crowley said he was not on alert for them. He tried not to think, however, of where hunters and demons might stand in a century's-time. 

Aziraphale nodded his head. "And now it seems that angels are becoming more common knowledge."

A sigh left Crowley's lips in understanding. "Oh. You think that they'll start hunting you lot, too." He tipped his head away, regarding the ceiling above his head as he thought. Aziraphale looked down at his lap, lips pressing together tight.

"Well, yes. I suppose so," he admitted. 

"Nah," Crowley replied, shaking his head. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows.

"You don't think so?"

"Nah," he repeated. "There's a difference between angels and demons and werewolves; the whole lot. We're dangerous. We're the bad guys," he said with a sly grin. "You're an _angel_. If all humans found out about you lot, you wouldn't be hunted. You'd be worshipped. Lot of religions like angels, you know. Lot of humans are religious. Someone would build you a statue."

Cheeks dusted pink, Aziraphale shook his head. "Oh, no, no. I don't think so," he dismissed. 

"Can't rationally see humans as a whole wanting to hunt angels. Maybe some - humans are like that, you're always going to have some - but nah. You're fine, Aziraphale. Don't worry about stuff like that." 

The angel looked a little hesitant still, his lips pursed, then he turned his eyes towards the book in his lap. "I suppose," he mumbled. He didn't seem entirely comfortable to set aside the train of thought forever, but at least for the moment he was able to turn his attention away from it now and back to the book in his hands. 

Crowley hadn't been lying with his opinion. He thought that, yes, eventually humans would come to the knowledge of the supernatural world; whether that was in millennia or less than a century. And depending where this little case ended up, perhaps hunters were coming to the realisation that angels were on Earth already. Crowley did think that there would always be some hunters whom would continue to hunt angels like common prey, but should they become global knowledge? Well, Michael would have revelled in that. Heaven could take Earth by storm and humans would probably kneel for them, for they were angels, and humans saw angels as perfection. A higher power, and who were they to oppose God's messengers? He was sure that's how the general public would react, rather than hunting them down. Because angels wouldn't be seen as a threat, as something malicious or harmful or dangerous, unlike the likes of vampires, of werewolves, of demons.

Crowley had been lucky with the fact that he had had very few run ins with actual hunters. Whether that was his luck or just the lack of hunters wherever he was, he didn't mind. Monks and priests in earlier centuries had been worse than hunters. Truthfully, it unnerved him, to see the likes of angels being killed and to imagine that it was _hunters_ doing it. That hunters, humans, were even capable of doing such a thing. Where would that leave him? Another run of the mill demon, which seemed to be one of the first things hunters learned to successfully exorcise and kill. 

A shudder seized his body. He didn't want to think along that train of thought, and he quickly averted it before it could continue. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the case. He closed his eyes, visualising the information he had of the case as if it was all strung up on a board, with red string connecting each point. Not as if he had many points.

Supernatural creatures were either being killed or disappearing. This included, but was not limited to, angels. Something they wouldn't expect. What would they expect? Hell, perhaps, had it just been angels that were targeted. Demons? But with that logic, then it would be neither Hell nor some rogue demons. 

Crowley's lips pursed. He didn't know what to make of it. He had never done this kind of thing before, and he was already beginning to regret it. Images of his bed, king sized, black, silken sheets, in front of his large window overlooking the streets, with a heater right by the foot of the bed all flashed on the back of his eyelids, tempting, taunting, just out of reach. His plants, whom he hoped were too scared of him to wither and wilt whilst he was away, would stand tall in the sunroom, leaves stretching out, the best ones blooming flowers. He could stretch out across his furniture in a way that lessened the pressure on his hips and his knees - they had never worked properly since his first venture in human form, and he assumed it was part of the fact that he wasn't supposed to have them, as a snake wasn't supposed to hold its weight in such a preposterous way - and he could put on the next rerun of _Breaking_ _Bad_ while leaching all the warmth from his heater. 

Then he opened his eyes and he was still sitting on the tartan couch of a little cabin tucked away in America. The curtains were still a coffee brown, the garden outside still disgustingly unafraid. A sigh left his lips unwarranted and he propped his chin upon the heels of his hands. His toes tapped the floor beneath him, black slippers contrasting the floorboards. He looked at Aziraphale, intently studying his book. He looked to the window. Trees waved at him with spindly claws, leaves dangling from the tips of their wooden fingers. He looked to Aziraphale, still reading his book. 

He heaved himself to his feet in one smooth movement, rocking his weight, and he considered the consequences of miracling a television back into the sitting area. Before he could, however, he was interrupted by his cell phone ringing suddenly, breaking the peace and quiet with Queen's _Hammer To Fall_. Aziraphale startled, jumping half out his skin and glowering at the device, but he handed it over to Crowley. 

"Yup," said Crowley pleasantly into the phone, his face unamused.

"Oh, good, I wasn't sure if you'd be asleep by now or not," Sam responded with a sigh of relief. 

"I wish I was," Crowley grumbled.

"Ah, right... well, do you think you and Aziraphale could come meet us? It's about the case."

"I didn't think it was anything else." Crowley snapped his fingers and his pyjamas turned into his usual outfit, and Aziraphale was already standing up, dressed and ready. "At the bunker?" He asked, striding towards the door with Aziraphale in tow.

"Oh, not tonight," Sam said, sounding apologetic for it. He gave the name and room number of the motel they were staying in, and with that, Crowley hung up and fell into his Bentley. Aziraphale entered much more carefully, sliding into the passengers seat and gently closing the door behind him. He buckled himself into his seat. 

"Good news, you think?" The angel asked. Crowely hummed, shrugging. The Bentley's headlights turned on, flooding the drive in light, and then he guided the car onto the main road. 

"Depends on your definition of good," he replied. Aziraphale nodded mutely at that, frowning slightly. He fell silent, watching the world fly past as Crowley drove them at highly illegal speed until they reached the motel. He only looked partially green by the time he staggered outside. 

"I do hope they have some tea," he whined, one hand on his stomach as he approached the door with Crowley following leisurely behind him, one hand tucked away inside his jeans pocket. 

"I got us here in record time," tutted the demon. Aziraphale didn't look pleased at that, fixing him with a warning look. His knuckles rapped against the motel door, paint peeling off, and after some shuffling from inside, the door opened. 

Crowley's nose wrinkled at a sudden overpowering smell that burned his nostrils, and within the second it took him to recognise and identify the smell, he had ducked behind Aziraphale, whom recoiled a split second after as water splashed over his face. He heard Sam yelling _wait!,_ and then he took several steps back, avoiding the drops that shook off Aziraphale's hand. From where the water had been, his skin flashed brilliant gold as if revelling in the blessing. 

A man sat on a wheelchair in the doorway, holding a half-empty bottle of holy water. Sam was hurrying by his side, looking extremely apologetic and dishevelled. "Don't - don't do that, Bobby," he spluttered, plucking the holy water from his hand. He looked around Aziraphale to spot Crowley, his eyes studying him up and down. Upon seeing no wound or no demon melting into a puddle, he let out a sigh of relief, not as heavy as the one Crowley expelled. 

"What the shit?" Crowley hissed, eyebrows reaching up to his hairline. "Did you set us up?"

"No! No, no, I just... forgot to tell him," Sam defended sheepishly. He put a cap on the bottle of holy water and set it aside, and the man on the wheelchair looked quickly between Sam, Aziraphale and Crowley.

"Tell me what, boy?" He demanded gruffly. He looked at Crowley with distrusting eyes, wheeling back slightly into the motel room. "Are you only telling me now that we're working with demons?" 

"I'm right here," Crowley said, waving his hand. "Name's Crowley, duke of Hell, Beelzebub's right hand torturer, commonly called The Bringer of Nightmares, The Creator of Torment, Bringer-of-Terror, Lurks-In-Shadows, Leviathon, Paimon, or, simply put, The Serpent. Pleasure's all mine." Crowley grinned and held a hand out. Aziraphale looked horrifically embarrassed. He stepped forwards in front of Crowley, batting down his hand. 

"I'm terribly sorry for him," the angel said. "He's none of those things." He paused. "Well, Crowley is his name. Serpent technically, I suppose." He grew thoughtful for a moment before shaking it off. He offered his own hand. "Aziraphale. Just Aziraphale." 

Hesitantly, as if still reeling from Crowley's introduction, the man reached out to shake Aziraphale's hand. "Right..." He muttered, then wheeled off to sit by a steaming mug of coffee at the rickety wooden table in the room. Crowley and Aziraphale let themselves in, Crowley closing the door with the heel of his foot. 

"Did you really have to do that?" Aziraphale asked beneath his breath. Crowley, uncaring, shrugged. 

"No," he admitted. "But if you're going to call me a demon, then I'm going to be a demon." He sighed, looking up at the popcorn textured ceiling. "If only I was a duke," he murmured thoughtfully. He shook his head slightly, then took a seat on a squeaky motel bed that made itself a second before he sat on it. Aziraphale gave him a last lingering look before sitting down beside him.

"Can I offer you some tea or coffee?" Sam asked. He seemed to have gathered himself from the near-murder on his doorstep, pottering round back to the kettle.

"Oh, please," requested Aziraphale eagerly, nodding his head with a smile. "Is Dean and Castiel around?"

"Dean's in the bathroom, Castiel should be here in a minute," Sam said, jerking his head back to the closed door at the opposite end of the room. Just as he finished making tea and handing it off to an extremely grateful Aziraphale, Dean came out of the bathroom, shaking his hands dry. He startled when he noticed Aziraphale and Crowley, then nodded his head in greeting. 

"Long time no see," he joked tiredly. He snatched up a mug of coffee that had been previously abandoned, gulping it down, and then he sat down on the other bed in the room. Crowley grunted in mutual understanding. 

"May I ask what you called us here for?" Aziraphale asked, looking up from the mug hugged between his hands. 

Sam nodded, as if suddenly pulled back onto the topic at hand, and he glanced at the man in the wheelchair that still seemed rather uncomfortable. Crowley did not take responsibility for any discomfort he felt. "We have a couple of leads that are looking... hopeful," Sam said. "Castiel's out looking at one - he should be back soon - and we're currently looking at one to follow in the morning. This," he gestured a hand to the gruff looking man, "is Bobby. He's a... friend of ours. He's helping look into this one."

Aziraphale nodded his head, fingernails tapping along the mug of tea in his grasp. "And what would these leads, well, lead to?" He inquired, head tipping to the side. Sam hesitated.

"This..." He paused, then lifted his laptop into his arms and walked over, showcasing the screen. "Ours would hint to hunters being behind this. Possibly a new group of well armed hunters that are just determined to excel at their job."

Crowley leaned forwards to scrutinise the screen. His eyes took a moment to focus on it, and then he studied it. It was an email, a hasty screenshot of one. It glossed over briefly the new invention of some kind of type that hadn't been seen before; modified for different species, preying on their weaknesses. Incapacitating them and trapping them. The ones described in the email were designed for vampires, it seemed, but the detail was enough to make Crowley feel once more unpleasantly stunned by humans. 

"And Castiel's?" Asked Aziraphale.

"That's what he's finding out," Sam said. 

"Are you going to talk to them?" Crowley asked. "If they're hunters? Tell them to back off a bit? Calm down, perhaps?" He insisted, giving them a tight-lipped grin. Sam and Dean shared a look, then looked to Bobby. 

"We might," Sam said eventually. "I just want to finish getting a bit more information on them before we approach them."

Crowley bobbed his head, running a hand through his hair and sighing. His hand dipped down, fingertips sneaking underneath his glasses and prodding at the bags that were surely growing beneath his eyes. And Aziraphale, sitting right next to him, simply exuded warmth and security, and if Crowley just twisted a slight way then he would be able to prop his head in the crook of his neck and fall asleep in a second flat. He didn't get the chance, hardly managed to gravitate towards the angel, before there was a thud and a sudden gust of wind introducing Castiel. Sam and Dean jumped, Dean muttering a curse at the familiar and still shocking entrance.

"There's a door, Cas," he sighed, scrubbing a weary hand down his face, "you can use it sometimes."

Castiel blinked once, then brushed the comment off. 

"What did you find?" Sam asked, glancing the angel up and down as if to check for any injuries. Other than his hair being slightly ruffled, the angel looked as he always did.

"Demons," he said. "I'm sorry, I could not stay for long by myself. They were in a hurry and would have noticed me. And," he paused, toying with his lip for a moment, "they were not speaking a language that I could understand. Not when talking about anything informative, at least." He looked apologetic, almost ashamed as he gazed down at his feet, his lips creating a straight line in his face. 

"Do you think they were involved?" Sam inquired, leaning forwards onto the table. Castiel nodded.

"They mentioned some things that I could pick up. I'd need to hear more," explained the angel. 

Hopeful eyes turned to Crowley, who startled beneath the weight of their gaze. He sat up a little straighter. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. No way." He shook his head vigorously, folding his arms across his chest. Aziraphale had perked up, too, looking conflicted as he sat a hand on Crowley's thigh; to reassure him or to stop him from escaping, he didn't know.

"Do demons have their own language?" Sam asked tentatively. Crowley waved his hands.

"Old ones, yeah. Most of us just stick to human languages."

"Do you know it?"

Crowley shifted on the bed. Demons did have their own language, much like angels had Enochian. The only difference was that demons born from humans didn't ever learn it, and so as time passed, less demons actually spoke it. Crowley, Falling before humans had yet to be brought into existence, knew the language. Rusty as he may be, he knew it. " _Maybe_ ," he groaned, shaking his head. 

"Would you please go with Castiel?" Sam asked, and his eyes seemed to warm and melt, endless pools of warm amber that looked like they belonged to a golden retriever, rather than a giant of a man. 

"I am not walking into a demon nest," Crowley said. "Nope. Is that all? Can I go home now?" He rose to his feet, heading to the door.

"A favour," said Dean. "You do us this, then you can hold us for something." He raised an eyebrow, hands held up, palms open. 

"Ignore the whole, saved you from being Michael's puppet, got locked in a Devil's Trap by you lot, that I've done for you," he snorted. 

"Then three favours! You said you'd help with this case," he stated. Crowley glared at him.

"I didn't mean like this," he muttered. Under all of their relentless gazes, Crowley threw his hands up in the air. "Go- _fine_. Fine! Get in my car." He waved his hands to the door, fixing Castiel with a deadpan. 

Aziraphale stood up. "I should go with you," he stated, wringing his hands in front of him. "You might need help."

Crowley hesitated. "Bad enough luck bringing one angel to a demon party," he said, voice softening. "Don't wanna risk that, now."

"I can hold my own, Crowley," Aziraphale said, lifting his head a little. Crowley waved his hands.

"I know you can, angel," he said. He knew Aziraphale could very well hold his own if he had to, he didn't worry about that. But one angel would draw enough attention, and if it was a trap, Crowley would not risk Aziraphale. He set a hand on Aziraphale's shoulder. "We'll be five minutes." He gravitated towards the door, opening it. "Help - help Sam, with that, uh, email stuff, yeah? C'mon." He jerked his head towards Castiel. 

"Driving will take too long," Castiel stated, coming closer to Crowley. His smoky wings spread out slightly behind him, feathers twitching, and Crowley's eyes blew wide.

"I am not flying there," he denied, glancing back to his Bentley.

"It'll take too long," Castiel insisted. Then he settled a hand upon his shoulder and in a rustle of feathers, they were gone.

If not for Castiel's hand on his arm still, he would have fallen as soon as they landed, a heap sprawled out on the floor. His knees buckled and Castiel's grip pulled him back upwards. He reached out with a hand to steady himself against the wall, too. 

"Give me some warning," Crowley hissed between his teeth, taking a few breaths to steady himself and the way his stomach rolled. 

"We're here," said Castiel. Crowley rolled his eyes and fixed his glasses. Eventually, he just pulled them off his face, hanging them from his shirt, for it was too dark inside to see with them on.

"I got that," Crowley muttered bitterly. He stood up off the wall and Castiel let him go, and then he looked around.

They were inside a building, and evidently an old one. There were no lights in the hallway they stood in, but plenty of cobwebs, smashed glass, trash and graffiti. Rats scampered around in the room to his left, and he bit back a yell as a spider confidently crawled over his fingers before he shook it off. Wind whistled through cracks in the walls and, sure enough, voices drifted to his ears from further down the hall in an old language he slipped easily back into.

_"Waste any more time and I'll personally see to it that Alistair greets you Downstairs."_

_"This would go faster with your help! If you're so sure they're coming, then why don't we just leave?"_

_"And return empty handed to Lord Beelzebub? Don't be stupid-"_

_"You say that they're worse than the Pits, I'd think Beelzebub would understand. You saw what happened to Argroz!"_

_"Who cares about Argroz? He got what he deserved, leading them here like he did."_

_"Then we should leave before they come here!"_

_"Just grab that and get a move on-"_

_"Wait."_

_"Do not interrupt me-"_

_"Oh, shut it. Just - wait. Do you smell that? Someone's here."_

Their voices dropped to hushed whispers, the sounds of their footsteps halting. Castiel gave Crowley a curious look, his eyebrows pinched. 

"They know we're here," Crowley whispered. He took a few steps back, opening his mouth to tell Castiel to take them back to the motel, when two figures slid out of a room and into the hallway; dark figures standing like shadows opposite them. 

"Well, it's not them," said one demon to the other, slouching slightly.

"No, just an angel and a demon cooperating together and eavesdropping on us," the other hissed. The two slid back into English in their presence, and they began to stalk forwards. Crowley stood a little taller. 

"Hey there, friends," he said with a grimace. "Just... we'll be going now." He stepped to Castiel's side and nudged him. 

A door slammed open. All four beings jumped in surprise, whipping around to where light slowly filtered in through the front door. A group of them, he could tell, all humans, all cocky and confident as they strode in with heavy footsteps, unashamed.

"Oh, fuck," the shorter demon wheezed, staggering back. "I told you! I told you we had to leave!" 

"Let's fucking go," agreed the taller demon, too looking a little paler despite his skin having a natural green tinge like a swamp. 

"No point in hiding," called a man, "there's no way out."

"Castiel, you better get us out," Crowley hissed, fisting his hand in his horrendous trench coat and dragging him down the hall, following the demons in the opposite direction of the hunters. Castiel staggered for a moment and his wings twitched, stretched, then convulsed. 

"There's warding," he gasped. "I can't fly. They've warded the house."

"Oh, for go - shit. Come on," he urged. He fell into the back room, the last at the end of the corridor, and watched as the two other demons scratched at a seemingly invincible door, growing increasingly panicked. They glanced briefly back at them, sneering.

"Don't just stand there," the taller one said, "help us open this damn door!"

Crowley and Castiel shared a glance, surprised at their sudden willingness to cooperate. Something smashed down the corridor and it was enough motivation that he needed to go to the door, trying his hand at pulling it. It was a rickety old thing, hinges all rusty, and it looked as if a teenager could kick it down. And yet, with three demons pulling on it, it didn't budge. The taller demon's form rippled, calling forth more of his true form in a sudden bout of desperation, and even with long, curled horns knocking at it, and claws scratching at it, it didn't budge and didn't break.

Something rolled into the room. Sounding like a coin rolling over the ground, and they all turned to watch what looked like a little ball roll inside the room, like a circular deodorant can, and it spun and rested a few feet from them all. With narrowed eyes, everyone scrutinised the tiny object. It clicked once, twice, three times, then the top flicked off and rapidly smoke began to fill the room, clouding their vision and clogging their throats. Castiel seemed unaffected, save for the fog over his vision, while the trio of demons were stolen by a harsh coughing fit, throats tightening and noses burning, eyes streaming. 

Sage, Crowley realised. 

Weapons designed to target specific species. Prey on their weaknesses. 

Crowley had a vague thought of, _oh, fuck,_ before he was nudging Castiel again, wheezing out demands that he get them out. 

Footsteps thudded into the room, hardly heard over rasping coughs, and they were only given time by Castiel letting his angel blade slide into his hand. He didn't hesitate before lunging at one of the hunters, just out of view in the smoke, and Crowley pressed himself against the wall, thudding the fist that wasn't on his chest back down against the door. It didn't budge. The other demons fell silent. Castiel could still be heard, surprising everyone else. 

Crowley sunk to the floor. Rubbing the heels of his hands into his tearing eyes, he tried to peer through the smoke to see Castiel. Everything had grown silent. He couldn't hear a single breath, a single floorboard creak. 

"Cas?" He croaked, voice rough like slate. He held a hand over his mouth as if that would filter out the sage devouring the room, clogging and burning his lungs. He shuffled forwards, head swinging side to side as he tried to seek out the angel.

A floorboard to his left creaked. Something hard hit the back of his head once, twice, and he was out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, huh?   
> Again, sorry for the late update, thank you for being patient. If you liked this part, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment if you liked this part; I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	4. Blood Is On My Tongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

He woke to find himself in the back of a dark van, aching from where he had been jostled as they drove with him unconscious, thrown aside like a forgotten heap. His head ached fiercely, pounding behind his eyes, and it took him a moment to find Castiel. The angel looked rough, his jaw set and eyes cold, one framed by a dark bruise. His gaze flitted down to the demon, pleased to see him waking up. His hands hung between his knees, bound together in a pair of thick manacles with runes etched perfectly into them. When Crowley looked down at his own wrists, he found a similar pair, the only difference being the runes. The two demons who had been with them were also in the van, a heap of unconscious limbs jumping with each bump in the road. 

"What the..."

"Hunters," said Castiel. Crowley sat up, sitting back against the van wall and grimacing. His body ached, his throat like the dry remains of a fierce forest fire. "The same ones behind every other disappearance and death, I'd assume."

"And behind those... things," Crowley grumbled. He coughed into his hands and then scrubbed his hands down his jaw, looking around. There were no windows, no way to tell where they were, and he had no idea how long he had been out for. 

"What?"

"The, ah, weapons. Was what the others were looking at," Crowley said. "Where are we?"

"I can't tell," replied Castiel. "The manacles prevent me from seeing further than usual. Or from flying. Or," he frowned, "from healing."

Crowley looked down at the manacles. They were thick and looked like something out of a fantasy-set video game, yet they were also elegant; perfectly crafted, with no rough edges. They didn't bite into his wrists, but there was no way he would be able to slip his hands out of them; even if he tried to dislocate or break his thumb. They were heavy, but their pressure was much more than just their physical weight; it felt as if the shackles sat on his very bones, sat all over his body. It felt as if he was in a tiny cage, locked and shoved away, walls pressing against him. He felt human. He could see his occult powers just by his fingertips, yet just out of his reach. 

"Got that," he said. The chain between both manacles was fine and steady, and did not give when he tried to yank it apart. "You still got that sword of yours?" He asked. Castiel's cheeks flamed warm and he shook his head.

"No. They took it." He looked frustrated and mad, angry at himself and shamed that he had gotten taken down, let them been captured. Crowley waved him off.

"How many?"

"Five that were in the house." He looked away, towards the doors of the van. "I suspect there will be many more wherever we're going." 

"That's promising," Crowley muttered. He tried not to think of the situation. Deaths and disappearances, of weapons exploiting their weaknesses, restraints that rendered them as weak as humans. 

"Sam and Dean will be looking for us. They were on the right trail before we left," Castiel said. Crowley wasn't sure whether he was trying to tell Crowley or himself that. However, he did at least sound sure of it, confident in his friends. Crowley thought about Aziraphale. He would be mad that he hadn't been there and this had happened, horrifically upset about the whole ordeal, and he wouldn't let Crowley out of his sight for the following few months. At the very least, Crowley was grateful that he wasn't here. He was safe with Sam and Dean. He would be fine. He'd return the favour, and it'd be like that time in France when Aziraphale had been caught and Crowley had freed him, and in a few decades it would be a funny joke that they'd laugh at after some wine.

Crowley didn't respond and Castiel didn't attempt to make conversation. The two demons slowly began to wake, too, sore and rough and sitting at the opposite end, away from them, against the van doors. While Crowley and Castiel sat silent, they grumbled and cursed and tried to break one another's manacles, to no avail.

"It ain't gonna happen," Crowley snapped, his patience listening to the harsh sound of nails on metal finally gone. "We're not getting them off."

The demons shot hostile looks his way, but they hunkered down and gave it a break. "Where are we going?" The taller one asked. He stood probably a good few inches above Crowley, enough so to make him crane his neck to look at them when they had been standing, and he was oddly proportioned in a way that Crowley read as _not human._ He was muscular, his skin a dark brown, and his eyes were dark and his hair thick and long and messy. He huffed breaths through his broad nose and had a habit of tapping his foot and of dragging it along the floor, as if it was a hoof. He looked very much like an older demon forced into a humans body that wasn't quite able to hold him and his true form. 

"We can't tell," Crowley said. The shorter demon huffed and shook his head and resumed his anxious tapping. He stood short and squat, inches shorter than Aziraphale, with sagging skin, eyes that looked distantly like a frog's, and his tongue constantly dashed out to wet his lips, his fingers spread, hands pressed down on the floor by his side, legs tucked beneath him. He made deep, hollow sounds with each breath, and Crowley had the impression that if he were to touch him, his fingers would come back wet and slimy. 

Crowley mourned demon's appearances. Always tied to some animal or other, with quirks that showed through to their human form. Crowley was every bit grateful that he had not been tied to something like a fish, or a beetle. He wondered what kind of mammoth the taller demon was tied to. 

"What's a demon doing working with an angel?" Asked the taller demon, lips sneering, curling away from rows of uneven, strong teeth. 

Crowley hummed. "Not really your business, is it?" He returned. The demon glared at him and, had they not all been shackled and as strong as a human, he might have tried to bash his head against the van wall just for the sake of it. As it was, he sat back and looked away, eying the van doors. 

They drove for what Crowley argued must have been at least another hour, but with no way to see outside or count time, he couldn't really tell. After confusing twists that sent them tumbling against the walls, the van slowed. It came to a stop for a moment and Crowley heard voices and movement, heavy things moving, dragging, and then the van continued to move, going downwards this time. Then it stopped for the last time, and the doors opened. The short demon was grabbed and pulled out suddenly, and the taller one lunged out, hands closing around the closest persons neck. They went down, not expecting the strength and weight he still had with his powers restrained, but there was a sound akin to a hob stove clicking and then the demon's muscles seized, then convulsed, and then he fell still, unconscious. Crowley and Castiel still sat in the back of the van. 

There was a large group of people outside, all wearing reinforced clothing, bordering armour, with weapons in their hands or on their belts. They all looked either smug or irritated, as if the demons fighting was more of an inconvenience and a nuisance than anything. As far as Crowley could tell, it looked as if they were in an underground car park, dark vans like the one they were in parked nearby, people milling about. Crowley assumed this is what the car park to Area 51 looked like. 

The two demons were taken out of view. The shorter one resisted, yelling and thrashing and croaking, and there was the crack of electricity and he fell silent. 

"Make this easy for yourselves, and come out nice and calm now," said a man, standing with a cattle prod. Crowley looked at Castiel, who did not seem very willing to cooperate. Crowley wasn't, either, but he had a suspicion that he understood their situation and wasn't clouded with pride or the need to prove himself as a warrior, like he felt Castiel did at the moment, and so he shuffled slowly forwards, hands raised. He knew they didn't see him as a threat, however.

"I think this is all a large misunderstanding," Crowley said. He found his feet, clambering out of the van and standing up. "How about you just-"

Hands clasped onto his shoulders and he was being forcefully steered away, heading towards a large, heavy door. Panic jumped up his throat and he looked around, watching Castiel follow his lead and clamber out. He held his head high, his jaw locked, as if he wasn't being marched away like a prisoner to the block. He didn't seem panicked, but certainly unhappy about the entire situation. If he thought Crowley knew what he was doing or felt comfortable in his decision to jump out the van willingly, then he was dead wrong.

"Mind, uh, you know, letting us go?" Crowley asked with what he hoped was his best charming smile. "I'm afraid we just got caught up in the wrong place with those pesky demons, but you have them, like you intended, so if you would be so kind to-"

"How about you keep your mouth shut, demon," snapped one man, his hand flexing over his cattle prod as if he had to restrain himself from just jabbing Crowley. "You were in the right place at the right time, for us. You and that angel." Crowley's lips pressed together and he exchanged a look with Castiel. 

"Kidnapping an angel, huh? That won't get you very far. I might meet you Downstairs in a few years for that-"

"No creature is better than the other," sneered the man. "Angel or not."

Crowley grumbled under his breath, a grimace stealing his features. Unwilling to risk his luck and end up like the other two demons, he kept his mouth shut.

They left the car park, entering the large door closest to them. They were lead down long, dimly lit corridors, walls all stone and cold and damp, their footsteps echoing. Then the corridor widened out and went upwards on a slope, abandoned the old-castle-basement feel, and Crowley stopped his steps so suddenly that the man following behind him, leading Castiel, ran into his back.

The place opened up into a hallway that, to the left, the direction they were heading, walked between cells, much like a refurbished dungeon. The front walls had been replaced with bars to allow the guards to supervise the inhabitants, allowing no privacy to scheme, and the bars sang of wardings for every creature, witches and demons and vampires and things Crowley had thought were extinct, or far away. 

Most cells were taken. Either by one individual or more, each cell housed a supernatural creature that looked either dead behind its eyes, raw with terror, or blind with rage. Vampires hissed but dared not to near the bars, and werewolves snarled, teeth bared, eyes wild. Witches hardly spared them a glance, their eyes glassy, and demons scratched their nails along the walls and cursed everyone that walked by. They all held one thing in common, and that was the thick, snug collars that sat around their necks, leaving their skin red and sore. 

They were prisoners. And Crowley did not want to know why they were doing this. 

The man behind him shoved him forwards roughly. Crowley staggered forwards, his knees suddenly weak, and then he dug his heels in. "What the shit?" He spluttered. A hand on his shoulder, firm, tried to shove him forwards, and he lashed out, shoving back and pulling himself free. He backed up, panic rising, and _where was he_? What kind of people had taken him? 

A half-hearted warning was thrown his way, telling him to stand down, and when he did not comply, something jabbed into his ribs. There was a crack, and then electricity coursed through him, seizing, consuming. His muscles failed him and his ears rang, and they did not stop until his throat felt fried and he was on the floor, convulsing. 

When he awoke once more, he was, again, on a floor. There was a constant, whole body ache, his muscles exhausted, and the way his hips sang with pain stole his breath for several moments. He rolled off his side with a hiss, onto his back, and then looked around. 

He was in a cell.

His hands were free.

Something sat around his neck; heavy, oppressive, burning. 

Castiel was sitting on a bench in the cell. He looked rough, dishevelled. His knuckles were split, and he too wore a collar in place of his manacles. 

"How long was I out?" Crowley rasped. With slightly uncoordinated movements, he sat up, then shimmied across the floor until he could lean back on the wall, not bothering to attempt to stand up. He flexed his fingers, shook his hands, then turned to blink at Castiel.

"It's been about an hour," said Castiel. His voice was rough.

"What about the collars?" Crowley asked. He reached a hand up to touch it. His fingers traced the runes etched into them, ghosted over needle-thin holes, and the little loops on the front and the back. It wasn't tight enough to choke him, but he couldn't slip his fingers beneath it. It was heavy, hot with whatever wardings they had laced into it, and tremendously uncomfortable. Crowley felt like a mutt sitting in the pound. 

"They put them on while we were unconscious."

"We?" He raised an eyebrow. Castiel's cheeks heated up and he looked away.

"They tried to put it on me and I fought back," he said. His hands were clasped together tightly, nails leaving crescents in his skin. 

"Shit," Crowley grumbled. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and took several slow breaths. He did not like this. Not at all. He dropped his hands and looked at Castiel, deep in thought. The collar felt different than the manacles. In which the manacles had felt like a dam, blocking in his supernatural advantages, and they had offered no possibility for escape, no cracks in the walls, nothing. The collar felt as if he was stuck in a pen, but the pen had a gate. A gate with a hundred locks on it, sure enough, but a gate nonetheless. A gate that would open and allow all the demonic energy in him to be free and at his use once more. No amount of probing or shoving would overwhelm said gate, however. But it was more accommodating, one might say, whereas the manacles had been all about shoving down his powers, locking them down completely. In a way, they almost called to them. Crowley assumed that should the metaphorical gate open, he wouldn't have a choice in whether or not he used his powers.

"Indeed," Castiel muttered bitterly. Crowley glanced up, regarding him carefully. His skin rippled, grace boiling just beneath the surface. Restrained but waiting to leap forth, to show itself in the way of celestial light and dozens of eyes. Crowley grimaced and looked away briefly.

"Know what they're doing?" He asked. Castiel shook his head.

"I'm not sure. I've not heard much; after putting us in here, they left. Everyone else seems to be trying to sleep at the moment," he explained. Crowley, using the wall for aid, heaved himself to his feet and then staggered towards the bars. 

"Don't touch them," Castiel suddenly said, eyes sharp as he watched Crowley's hands a few inches above them. Crowley hesitated, frozen, then dropped his hands to his side and raised an eyebrow.

"Why not?"

Castiel tipped his head towards the bars. "Warded. They're painful to touch."

"Learned that the hard way?" He asked with bitter humour. Castiel didn't laugh. He looked away. Crowley turned his attention back to beyond the bars, peering out.

There were similar cells opposite them, all occupied. There were cells either side of his, although he couldn't see them, and the cells went as long as the hallway. And, Crowley noticed, they smelled. They smelled like illness and injury, blood and infection, and Crowley almost recoiled from it. The people directly opposite him were a witch and a vampire, and almost seemed to be friends with the way the vampire sat protectively over the sleeping witch. Her eyes were lined with dark shadows, her cheekbones high and prominent, and her hands flexed nervously. Her eyes flitted towards Crowley and then she turned her head away. 

Crowley glanced around, then leaned as close to the bars as he dared to. He saw no one else other than the prisoners. No humans, no guards, no hunters around. Crowley turned his attention back to the vampire, and he clicked his fingers then waved. "Hey, you," he called. "Vampire, over there." She continued to ignore him. Crowley continued to wave. "I know you can hear me. Where are we? Who are these people? Hello!"

"Will you shut up?" Hissed the vampire, shooting a glare at him. With a sigh, the vampire spared a glance at the sleeping witch by her side, then slowly, carefully, she stood, and came close to the bars of her cell. They must have been only six feet apart, the hallway narrow, and he wondered if, on the other side of the back wall of his cell, there were more. Rows and rows of cells, packed in, each one holding a dead eyed monster.

"Where are we?" Crowley asked again. He resisted the urge to reach out and grab the bars, or to try and reach his arm out between them. 

"I don't know," said the vampire. "They never bring you outside, and the vans don't have windows. I have no idea where we are." 

Crowley pressed his lips tight together. "Who are you?" He asked. The vampire snorted.

"I'm not someone who's able to get you out of here, if that's what you're really asking. And I'm not the reason you're here, either," she said.

"Well, what's your name, then?"

The woman hesitated. She was fairly tall, skinny in a way that looked unhealthy and, by the way the clothes sat on her, it implied they were her clothes and had once fit perfectly, and he wondered if it was poor treatment and stress that made them loose now. Her hair sat in braids, long and thick and dark, and her skin was evenly bronze and glowed as if she was in perfect health. She smelled of blood, and not her own. "Ava," she finally said. Crowley nodded his head and then offered what he hoped was a friendly smile.

"Crowley," he returned. Ava nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Now, not in a - a geographical sense," he said, "where are we?" 

Ava sighed. She thought for several moments, as if choosing how best to describe it. "It's a... hunter's game. A betting arena, I guess."

"I don't know what that means," he said. Ava gave him a look, then scratched her jaw.

"These hunters hate us. They want to make sport out of killing us. They put us against each other to fight, and only when they're bored of us do they kill us. Other hunters like them watch and bet on us. I..." She looked a little conflicted. "I think they might buy some of us. Some people go missing and it's not because they were killed." She was getting worked up, now, both fearful and angry, her hands flexing, eyes flitting around. "They made trophies from us. Fangs, claws. Wings." 

Crowley's eyebrows drew together, his mouth dry. He looked at Castiel, and the angel looked grim. His wings, along with Crowley's, tucked further against their backs protectively. Surely they couldn't. It must be impossible. He swallowed, thick, and then ran his tongue along his teeth. He nodded to the sleeping witch. "Who's that?" He asked. 

The vampire turned to regard her and her expression softened. She almost smiled. "Valentina," she said. "We were together when they came for us." 

The witch was a small woman, leaning against the wall to sleep. She had brown hair, loosely curled, the right side of her head shaved, and rosy cheeks. 

Crowley frowned, watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, then turned away. "Thanks," he said, quiet. He paused. "How long have you been here?"

The vampire blinked. "What's the date?" She asked. 

"Almost June, twenty-nineteen," said Crowley. 

The vampire's face fell. "May."

Nothing happened. Crowley wasn't sure whether or not he preferred that. No hunters patrolled down the corridors, no voices yelled threats at them, there was no crackling electricity of the cattle prods they had. Nothing. It didn't help his nerves. 

He sat with Castiel, and they tried to get the collars off one another until it proved useless and Ava insisted that there was no way to get them off without a remote. Valentina woke up and was pleasant to speak to, but she was shy and quiet and distant, only sharing whispers with Ava. Demons a few cells down demanded the hunters dare show themselves, and werewolves howled in hunger. Sam, Dean and Aziraphale did not come running through a door to bust down the cell door and save them. Nothing happened. 

When it did, it came in the form of hunters opening the small gate at the bottom of the cell, shoving in trays of varying food. For witches, it seemed just normal food. Vampires received bottles full of red. Werewolves received trays of disgusting, suspicious meat, and two trays slid through their little gate. The hunter pointed at the tray with a bottle of black liquid. "Demon," he said. He pointed at the tray with a sandwich and bottle of blessed water. "Angel," he said, then he moved on.

Crowley and Castiel shared odd looks. They shuffled slightly closer to it, scrutinising their 'meals'. 

The holy water for Castiel was diluted; extremely so. Crowley thought that he'd be able to touch it. It'd hurt like all Hell, but it was diluted to the point he doubted it would even melt flesh, but just burn it. There was nothing special about the sandwich. 

The bottle for Crowley reeked, and he didn't need to taste it to know what it was.

"They're insane if they think I'm drinking that," he scowled. 

"I don't understand," Castiel agreed. 

A door slammed down the hall, and the hunters were gone again. 

"Just drink it," said Ava. "You'll have to now or later," she said.

"And what does that mean?" Crowley snorted. 

"It means that they'll make you," she said dryly. Crowley sat up a little.

"Do they know what that does?" He asked dubiously.

"That's why they make you drink it," Valentina said, her voice sad. Crowley didn't think he could feel any more disgusted or horrified by hunters. He looked down at the bottle of demon's blood in front of him, his nose wrinkling up in disgust, and then he defiantly sat back down on the single bench in the room. Castiel joined his side, leaving both trays untouched. 

"I don't think they understand that we don't need to eat," Castiel commented. Crowley gave him a look. 

"That's not why they're giving us that," he snorted. Castiel's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and Crowley rolled his eyes. "They're hoping it powers us up," he stated. "But that's so diluted that I doubt it'll do anything for you." He looked from the holy water and to the cell opposite them. "She said they put us up as fighting dogs. You heard those werewolves. Shit." Crowley scrubbed his hands down his jaw, his leg bouncing anxiously. "I thought you said your little friends would be coming," he hissed. Castiel narrowed his eyes.

"They will be," Castiel defended. "They just need time."

"We might not have time," Crowley hissed. He looked to the cell opposite theirs. "May. They've been here since _May_." 

Castiel pressed his lips together, staring accusingly at the floor as if it was the floor's fault that they were in this situation. With an agitated hiss, Crowley rose to his feet, kicked the two trays out of the still open gate, and began to pace. The gate was small, too small for him to get through. Unless, he thought, he could turn into a snake. Try as he might, however, it seemed as if the collar even shut that down; it felt as if he was running into a brick wall again and again, nothing happening to him except for the way his muscles twitched uselessly. 

He huffed a breath and leaned against the wall. He eyed the two bottles outside the cell, smashed and staining the ground, and the sandwich in parts on the floor, and he dug his nails into the palms of his hands and glared down the hallway. He heard twisted moans of other creatures forcing themselves to eat whatever they had been given, heard werewolves brainwashed by hunger scratch at the ground and snarl, heard demons mutter old hails and curses repetitively. Creatures paced like trapped zoo animals, and Crowley cursed humans and hunters and he sat far from the bars.

When the hunters did come back, he was still angry enough that he didn't feel nervous. They took back the trays until they came to their cells and simply stared at the mess made in the hallway, and then, without uttering a single word, they left. Crowley shook his head, huffing a breath. Ava and Valentina dared not to look at them after that, as if they feared being caught for association. 

The hunters returned in due time, bringing with them a witch that made Crowley's stomach flip. She was young, and evidently not just by appearance. Young, small and frail, but at the very least she didn't look battered and worn like the others, and she began to clean up the mess in the hallway. That made Crowley feel guilty, but he realised that he was stupid for thinking the hunters would lower themselves to cleaning when they had cells full of helpless creatures. 

One hunter, tall and gruff, strode up to the cell. "Which one of you did it?" He asked, unamused. Neither him or Castiel answered him and the hunter sighed. "Make it easier for yourselves." 

Crowley glared at him. "Fuck you," he hissed. The guard nodded his head, looked around, then dug into his pocket. He glanced to the woman by his side.

"Get a new drink for them both, please," he asked. Then he pulled out a little remote control that fit perfectly in the palm of his hand. It had few buttons on it from what Crowley could see, only four, and they all looked indistinguishable, unlabelled. He checked the back of it, in which there was the number _13_ painted onto it, and then he pressed the third button. There was a quiet, electrical buzz, and the heavy collar around Crowley's neck heated up suddenly, then electricity coursed through him like a lightning bolt. He fell to his knees, one hand catching himself, the other grabbing at the collar. It did not stop. The man kept his thumb down on the button and looked like the whole ordeal was a chore. It did not stop. 

He was sure Castiel was saying something, his eyes cold, his skin rippling, his hand heavy on Crowley's shoulder, and finally it came to a stop, leaving him breathless and twitching on the floor. Castiel was grim faced, and despite the fact that they were not close, not friends, not at all, Crowley was never more relieved for his steely determination and the offered comfort. He helped him sit up when the tremors stopped and he could somewhat control himself again. He felt as if his brain had been rattled in his skull, and his teeth all felt loose, his tongue heavy and thick, but he still mustered another murderous glare when the guard returned with a new glass of demon's blood and diluted holy water. He slid them through the gate.

"Drink," he said. He stood watching, hands in front of himself, one hand on the others wrist, hand loosely holding the damned remote. Crowley looked at Castiel, and then back. He caught Ava's eyes in the cell behind the hunter's shoulder. She looked grim, and her lips were stained red, her hands shaking over her stomach, and she had settled in the corner opposite Valentina. She nodded slowly at him and then closed her eyes and tipped her head upwards to the ceiling.

Crowley swallowed dryly, then he nudged Castiel. The angel hesitated before huffing, reaching out and taking both glasses and handing one to Crowley. Castiel drank his. Crowley glared at the hunter with blazing eyes, then held his breath and drank. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I come up with full backstories for Ava and Valentina? Yes. Will they ever be told, or become main characters? Probably not. But they are here and in love in the background. Is this partially an excuse to incorporate Castiel and make him and Crowley bond? Partially. Am I physically able to write a story without beating up a character? Laughable.
> 
> Also, also. A possible future part may be written in Aziraphale's POV - or perhaps one of the Winchester's - and is that something you would want to see? Or would you prefer me to keep a consistent Crowley point of view? Please let me know! Thank you for reading!


	5. Friend or Foe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting more angst as I write, and I fully did not intend for it to be like this, I am so sorry but also not oops.  
> Enjoy!

Oh, he'd never been more _hungry_ than he was at that moment. 

He was positively starving. He felt like how a human would had they gone six millennia and eating about two bites of a meal every decade or two. His stomach was twisting and cramping in protest, throwing a fit, and he couldn't find a way to soothe it.

Aziraphale liked food. Aziraphale loved indulging in the human delicacies, enjoyed cooking it, too. Had he been here in that moment, he would have been eager to cook up an entire feast for Crowley, featuring traditional meals from all over the world, throughout different time periods, with all fresh ingredients. Maybe something warm to start off with, something hot and steaming and gentle on his stomach, and then a variety of meals. Oh, and he'd love making dessert, too. Maybe a cake, accompanied by a scoop or two of soft vanilla ice cream that melted in his mouth and was sweet on his tongue, drizzled lightly in a thin chocolate or raspberry sauce. Maybe they'd have some champagne on the side, or a thick milkshake, or a cocktail, or some fresh fruit juice, or all of it. Crowley was hungry enough that he would eat it all. Yet, that kind of food was not what he was craving. 

While Castiel's eyes shone a little with celestial light due to his little boost he'd received, Crowley's stomach demanded more. He felt like an addict going through immediate withdrawals. 

The hunters had left them once they had emptied their drinks, and since then Crowley had since retreated to the back corner of the cell, for once seeking to escape the heat devouring him by leaning against the cool walls. He felt filthy, disgusting, like a mutt locked away in a cage, and he felt so unbelievably thirsty for more. 

"I'd be willing to drink holy water at this rate," Crowley grumbled. "Something to get the damned taste out of my mouth." When he cracked his eyes open, he saw Castiel offering him a sympathetic look. 

"You didn't have to drink it," said the angel. It wasn't in a judgemental way, Crowley noted. More so in a _I would have backed you up if you refused_ kind of way. Crowley was almost touched. 

"Fucking collars," he said. "Brutal." He still had the shakes from the electricity, but perhaps that was from the demons blood. He couldn't be sure. "Not worth it, I say." Castiel didn't look convinced, but he kept his mouth shut and inclined his head in a small nod. He hesitated, words still on the tip of his tongue.

"Are you... alright?" He asked. Crowley snorted.

"Just peachy," he muttered. A shiver seized him momentarily and he closed his eyes. "Thanks for asking, though."

Castiel turned his gaze to the floor, looking conflicted. He ran his thumb over the healing knuckles of his other hand thoughtfully, and they lapsed into silence. Crowley wondered, once, what he was thinking, but decided that it was probably just a mantra like _Sam and Dean are coming. Sam and Dean are coming._ He knew Aziraphale would be coming. Aziraphale would not rest until he found him. The warding on this place, however, gave Crowley worry. It wouldn't be an easy case of sensing him, but they had two good leads. The email was correct about the new weapons, and surely they couldn't be that far from where they left. Crowley just hoped the lack of a fight or lack of other demons where he and Castiel had gone to search would hint at them not being destroyed by demons. If they were lucky, maybe the hunters had left that... sage bomb, or whatever it was, and they would link it to the hunters in the emails, link it to him and Castiel, and come within the next two days. Yes, that was what would happen. 

Aziraphale would come and miracle the key for the cell and the remotes for the collars and free them both, and he'd tut over Crowley going and getting himself into so many sticky situations - he really didn't want to know just how many sticky situations he'd gotten into over the expanse of his entire existence, let alone the past two months - and then they would finally, finally, go back to London, away from all this insanity.

Crowley suddenly missed Aziraphale with ferocity. He wished that he had let his touch linger just a little longer when he said goodbye. Sat a little closer, or said something sentimental before he left. And oh, how he hoped he would come soon, for there was someone else's blood boiling in his veins and he was going to be a monster by the time they came to rescue them, wasn't he?

"Can I do anything to help?" Castiel asked. Crowley lifted his head, blinking a few times. 

"Probably not," he said with a grimace. Castiel frowned apologetically and Crowley wondered if he'd blame himself for this, too. Crowley wondered what it was with good angels and blaming themselves for every fault in the world, or perhaps that was only Castiel. "Just send some reverse prayer to Sam and Dean telling them where we are."

The angel's eyebrows drew together. "I - I can't do that," he said.

Crowley huffed a laugh. "I know. I wasn't being serious." He sighed and dropped his head, then he leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, and rode out the following wave of nausea. 

He awoke to yelling. Screaming, really. He startled, sitting up quickly and regretting it, and turned to the bars to see a demon being hauled out by a pole hooked into the front loop of his collar, and pushed forwards by a pole on the back loop. The demon was spitting curses, hissing and lashing out but the poles kept the demon out of reach of the hunters forcing him down the hallway. She looked wild, her eyes not really focused, and Crowley wondered how much blood they had her doped up on. They forced her down the corridor until her yelling was out of his earshot, and when he looked around, everyone else in their cells had sat right back against the far wall, trying to look pathetic. 

"What's going on?" Castiel asked, turning to look at Ava and Valentina further opposite them. Ava looked up, her eyes shining. She licked her stained lips and glanced down the corridor.

"A fight," she said, quiet as if she wanted to keep her existence as small and unnoticeable as possible. Crowley wondered if there was any order to picking people here. "The first one."

"How many will there be?" Crowley spoke up. Ava shrugged.

"There's never a solid amount in a night," she said, "and unless people have paid to see a specific fight, people are picked at random. You never know." A door opened somewhere and the vampire immediately fell silent, looking away. Crowley carefully unfolded himself from his awkward position in the corner, watching carefully. The hunter's footsteps were slow, deliberate. Agonising, taunting. 

The hunter came into view. He looked at Ava and Valentina. Ava had moved by Valentina's side at some point in Crowley's sleep, and here she put an arm in front of her, angled her body in front of her and pulled her lip away from the rows of uneven, bloody fangs protruding from her gums. The hunter looked at the cell next to them, and then turned his head and looked at him and Castiel. He turned around to more hunters coming down the hallway and pointed in their cell. Both he and Castiel scrambled to their feet, Castiel gravitating to his side. 

A large group of hunters came into view, two holding the poles that hooked into the loops on the collars. The gate unlocked and they came in, and he and Castiel took several steps back.

"Angel," said one, "come here. Don't make this difficult." 

Unsurprisingly, Castiel did not cooperate. Crowley reached out to grab his arm, and they shared a look. They understood the situation, now. The gravity of it settling onto their shoulders, heavy and inescapable for the time being, and they were not willing to cooperate in their undoing. 

With an irritated sigh, one hunter pulled a remote out, pressed the third button, and Castiel cried out and crumpled to his knees, almost bringing Crowley down with him. Crowley let go, unwilling to risk electrocuting himself, but he lunged suddenly to the closest hunter, swinging his fists out. He landed a hit with a satisfying crunch to one hunter, and then he found himself on the floor, too, muscles seizing. If he paid attention to what was going on around him, he could see poles being hooked to Castiel's collar, and he was forced onto his feet almost immediately. Crowley's hands scratched at the floor but he couldn't get up, couldn't help as Castiel was dragged away and the cell door was closed and locked, and the corridor fell silent. 

When he could finally move again, Crowley thumped his fist angrily down on the floor beneath him. His limbs shook and his hips had never hurt like they did now since the 70s (the 1370s.) There was not a damn thing he could do, and Castiel was off being paraded like some fighting dog. Would they just go ahead and kill him? Castiel wouldn't comply. Would they get fed up of his resistance and just kill him, find a way to manifest his wings and saw them off, hang them up on the entrance to the little fighting ring and boast _those are angel wings. Real angel wings._

Maybe they'd get fed up of Crowley, too. Maybe they'd take his serpentine eyes as a trophy, or even force him to take his snake form and stuff him full like he was some deer head to be used for taxidermy and mounted upon the wall. Maybe Aziraphale would never find him and he'd spend eternity, generation after generation fighting for sport, until perhaps it became mainstream, played out on every television around America. And perhaps Aziraphale would be sitting with Sam and Dean still, in a handful of years, mourning his and Castiel's disappearance in some pub, and the television would switch to the sports channel, or perhaps even the comedy channel, and they'd announce a fight between two demons, or should fate be kind - or, arguably, not - to Castiel, a fight between an angel and a demon, and they would look up with half hearted glances, uninterested, hopeless, and watch Castiel with dozens of glowing, defeated eyes stand in a dirty ring, perhaps with some toy battle sword for show, and Crowley would be shoved in by a pole at his neck, more snake than human, venomous and raging, and neither of them would be the people they remembered years ago, fighting one another to near-death only to be dragged out long enough to heal and be shoved in again the next week. 

With careful movements, Crowley sat up. Careful and slow, and at a rather odd angle, moving very specifically to try and limit the amount his bones ached. He sat up and leaned back against the wall, and waited. There was nothing else he could do. 

At times, the hunters came back. He could hear them walking somewhere else, but not down the hallway he was in, and that just went to confirm his suspicion that there were more hallways with more cells with more people. They took them out to fight, and still Castiel did not return. Hours passed, and no hunters walked down the hallway to shove Castiel back into this cell with him. Crowley's stomach twisted and his heart felt heavy suddenly. He might not have been necessarily close to Castiel, but they only had one another in here, and the idea that he was dead, had been killed by these ruthless hunters, hurt, left him feeling a mix of fear and guilt and grief. 

At the end of the night, no more hunters came to take people to fight. They paid their last visit by shoving more food in, and Crowley bit back the need to comment on the fact that Castiel wasn't there and yet they had still put a glass of holy water on the tray. He took the tray aside, plucked up the glass of demon's blood, and twirled it around absently, as one might if they testing wine samples. It made his mouth water in such a disgusting way. He shouldn't. He really shouldn't. Nothing good would come from it, certainly. Nothing good at all. He knew exactly what would happen. And yet he had already had some and craved it like nothing else.

A door slammed open, interrupting his internal argument. He jumped slightly, looking up. It sounded weird. Bad. Four pairs of footsteps, one pair that was unsteady, dragging partly, tripping over themselves. Then the hunters came to his cell, opened the door, and two were holding up Castiel despite the angel's best efforts to walk for himself. He looked bad. Roughed up, bruised and tired, but he looked as if he had been cleaned up a bit. He staggered when he was shoved back into the cell and Crowley set the demon's blood aside, ignored the victorious sneer of one guard who saw him with it, and caught Castiel. They shuffled awkwardly over to the bench in the cell and sat down on it, and Crowley was just relieved to see Castiel here, alive.

"Are you okay?" He asked, words tumbling out in a rush. He couldn't see any gashes, any cuts, but there were plenty of bruises, the skin disappearing beneath his collar an angry red. And, he noticed, his suit and jacket were gone, replaced instead by a ridiculous gladiator costume that looked only a few steps above a Halloween costume. "What the fuck is that?"

Castiel's cheeks burned red up to the tips of his ears and he looked away. "For show," he growled. "I'm fine." He sat up a little, pushing himself up and getting more comfortable. 

"What happened? You couldn't have been gone that long," Crowley said. Castiel frowned and nodded.

"They... they dressed me up in this. Had me fight another demon, and afterwards I had to go. They - they have a witch, there, that heals us after fights." His tongue reached out to wet his lips and he glanced around. "I think... she might be our best bet, should we try to escape." Crowley raised his eyebrows curiously at that. 

"Is she allowed out?" He asked. 

"Not outside, but she's not in a cell. She has her own room. She isn't as closely watched, and she isn't put up to fight," Castiel explained. Crowley raised a hand to scratch his jaw, his eyes flicking to the hallway beyond the bars. He hummed in thought, and then propped his chin up on the palms of his hands. Castiel's eyes were distant, thoughtful, and for several long minutes he said nothing.

"Are you going to drink that again?" He asked, nodding his head to the demon's blood. Crowley glanced towards it and his stomach cramped. He realised he hadn't said anything for several moments, intently staring at it as if it would grow legs and run away. His forked tongue dashed out across his lips briefly and he closed his eyes, tipped his head back until it rested against the wall. 

"No," he said. Castiel shifted beside him. 

"I don't know what it does to demons," he said. Crowley raised an eyebrow slightly.

"What do you know it does to what, then?" 

Castiel didn't reply, and Crowley cracked open his eyes to turn and look at him. He nudged him. The angel sighed, still keeping his gaze away. His hands flexed over his lap. "Humans," he finally answered. Crowley sat up curiously, eyes narrowed.

"Humans?" He echoed. He exhaled a long breath. "No. No human would willingly drink demon's blood," he snorted, shaking his head. Castiel looked conflicted, his lips pressed together in a tight line.

"It did not look particularly pleasant," he stated, rather than explaining the story behind it. Crowley grimaced.

"No. It isn't." And the withdrawals were worse, Crowley thought, but he kept that to himself. He set his gaze back on the demon's blood and frowned. He wondered whose it was. Had it been Hastur's, or Beelzebub's, he was sure he wouldn't be able to physically make himself drink it out of pure disgust. Did they have a row of demon's that had outlived their fighting and were sat, a pile of skin and bones, used for nothing more than their blood. It made him feel sick. His stomach flipped. He had never wanted something more. 

"I won't judge you," said Castiel. Crowley narrowed his eyes at him, a retort on the tip of his tongue. Did he necessarily care what Castiel thought about him? No. Castiel could see him as the most damned abomination and it wouldn't matter one bit. He wasn't here to get into Castiel's good books. Nonetheless, he found himself holding back his retort, biting down on his tongue and looking away. 

"I could hurt you," Crowley finally settled on saying. He folded his arms across his chest, watching Castiel intently. The angel glanced down to his neck and then back up.

"Not much," he said. Crowley glared at him.

"I don't need supernatural powers to kick your ass, you know," he said, a little cockily. Castiel tilted his head to the side, as if confused. 

"That's not what I really meant." Crowley let out a sigh and scrubbed his hands down his face.

"I know," he groaned. His eyes found their way right back to the glass. It was dangerously full, dark red, near black, possibly still warm. His good knee bounced anxiously. 

Castiel stood, went over to the tray and retrieved both glasses, and then stood in front of him. He didn't hold it out, but it was there. He looked both parts ready to hand over the glass and to smash both, depending what Crowley did next. _What a good angel he could have been_ , Crowley thought. Easily following other people's leads, _but he had been too_ good _for Heaven and their twisted morals, their odd sense of Right and Wrong_. 

Crowley and Castiel might not have been close at all. Castiel might have very well held his own opinions on the snake-eyed demon quiet and to himself, might have still been wary of him being around Sam and Dean, but Crowley thought that he was making an effort. And he was willing to stand by Crowley's side, whatever decision he made and wherever it took them. Whether that was throwing the glasses against the wall and shattering them, resisting their entire time here until they left or could no longer fight, or by complying and getting this over with with as little harm from the hunters as possible. Crowley swallowed, thick and dry and rough. 

"If I..." He began, then his tongue dashed out to wet his suddenly dry lips. "If I start doing stupid stuff, just... hit my head against a wall, or something." He glanced up, then, looking a little more serious. "Whatever you have to." He reached out, took the glass. "And tell the others, when they come."

"You can tell them yourself," Castiel said, tentative. Crowley looked at him.

"Maybe not, unless they're quick."

Castiel's stare lingered, then he nodded. Crowley dropped the seriousness and raised his glass, as if it was a toast. "Well, cheers to getting captured by some psychopaths," he said with a tight grin. He tapped his glass against Castiel's, and his fangs chipped the glass as he raised it to his lips and drank with too much willingness for his own liking. 

Crowley did not talk for a while after that. He retreated to the uncomfortable ground in the opposite corner, pulled one knee up to his chest and stretched the other leg out, and one of his hands lingered by his mouth, his thumb running absentmindedly along his bottom lip. There was approximately nine other demons in this hallway, and he knew that because he could hear their heartbeats, furiously pumping blood throughout their system. He could smell the blood from the split knuckles of one demon, could smell the blood that Ava had been forced to drink earlier, and Castiel's heartbeat was so overwhelmingly loud beside him, beating a steady rhythm like church bells. At some point, Crowley started digging his teeth into his knuckles as if the sting would distract him. It took surprisingly little effort for his fangs to tear the skin stretched over his knuckles. Try as he might, he could not sleep that night. Castiel didn't, either, simply because he didn't sleep at all. Crowley's body would not relax enough to let him attempt to sleep. 

He shivered and he looked to and fro as if he expected to see the shadows move, morph into shapes and figures and people. Of course, though, they didn't. It was agony, he thought. The hunters went to sleep at night, or what he assumed was night, and there was no glass of demon's blood brought to him, and oh, how he so _needed_ it. It wasn't even a case of craving it, but he was sure to go insane without it. His body would cripple and crumple in on itself, wither away in slow agony without it. Castiel didn't dare ask how he was. The angel sat, eyes far off and glowing a pale blue light, and his skin rippled as dozens of eyes were forced to the surface, drawn out by the holy water, or perhaps the collars or the warding, and neither of them spoke about the way Crowley's nails were long and black, or how his cheekbones and throat glittered with smooth black and red scales, and more of his skin hidden beneath his clothing. 

Crowley closed his eyes and imagined himself and Aziraphale sitting in a bookshop in Soho, some nice glasses of wine in hand, and perhaps some nice music floating from the gramophone in the bookshop. They'd go out to eat somewhere nice after this, the best restaurant in the country, and then spend a night in the cottage they had and Crowley would curl up in bed next to Aziraphale, who would run his fingers through his hair and with his other hand he would hold a book, a perfectly preserved original copy of something written in the 1600s, and he would read aloud, lulling him to sleep. And then they'd get business class tickets to London, and leave this retched place far behind and resume their lives undisturbed, and this would become nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

Crowley just had to wait until they came. They would come. They would come soon. But not soon enough.

Morning came with the trays being shoved through the little gate in the cell and Crowley's heart leapt up into his throat as he eyed the tray. His blood roared in his ears and had he been able to move, he would have leapt for it. As it was, he had to wait for Castiel to unfold himself, pick up the glasses, and hold Crowley's out to him. He accepted it with a shaking hand. Castiel chose to sat cross-legged on the floor beside him rather than back on the bench, and Crowley, barely restraining himself from downing the glass, eyed him curiously. 

"You don't look very good," said the angel. Crowley scoffed, then looked away. He caught Ava's eye before she quickly focused her attention on Valentina.

Crowley shrugged. His nails tapped against the glass. Castiel continue. "How long do you think you can keep this up?" He asked. 

"I'm fine," Crowley hissed. "I'm fine."

Castiel fixed him with a sceptical look with all his eyes, and his eyebrows raised. Crowley glared at him. _Angels_ , he thought bitterly. Irritating by nature. Ought to have Crawley reach out with a clawed hand, wrap it around his pale throat and call upon the fire from the pits of Hell and-

No. Crowley closed his eyes and shuddered. That was not him truly thinking that. "I will be," he said finally, opening his eyes and nodding. Castiel pressed his lips together and he looked very hesitant as Crowley held the demon's blood up to his lips and drank. Nonetheless, he turned his gaze away and drained his own glass, and then returned the two once they were empty. Crowley stared at the wall opposite him and rubbed his cheeks and prodded at the bags beneath his eyes, and then his knuckles found their way back to his lips where he dug his teeth into them in an anxious tic. To the left side, someone thudded relentlessly on the wall separating them with such force Crowley almost thought that it might come crashing down in a mess of dust and debris. He couldn't quite tell what was on the other side of the wall. Perhaps a werewolf, what with the mindless savagery the creature seemed to have while bodily throwing itself around. Crowley was half tempted to yell for it to shut up, what with the pounding drum behind his skull.

Crowley suddenly decided that it was not enough. A meagre single glass of demon blood was not enough. He needed more if he wanted to feel as if he could function again, if he wanted to stitch his skull back together and get rid of the pounding in his head, chase out the fire in his veins, sate his endless thirst. Crowley unfolded himself, pushing against the wall and once he felt steady on his feet, he began to pace. Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down the length of the bars, his feet taking him along in long strides. 

Once, he had seen a video of some shitty zoo in some other country. It had shown videos of malnourished tigers locked in tiny cages, and it had shown videos of a bear that paced its tiny enclosure relentlessly, and its large head had swung from left to right in agitation, and Crowley felt like that bear. Locked away for entertainment, thought of as nothing more than a mindless animal to be used for sport. Crowley's foot kicked the tray again, once more sending it crashing out into the hallway, glasses shattering, and then, as if the little burst of energy had spurred more, he hissed and kicked the blasted bars that were locking him in there. 

He was thrown back as if hitting a barricade, skidding along the ground with his ears ringing and breath stolen. He saw stars, for a moment, an entire galaxy burned across his vision. Burning stars, glittering against the darkness of his vision, before it suddenly returned and he was not floating among the cosmos, but still trapped in this cell in the middle of nowhere, as far as he was concerned. But Castiel was there, in his ridiculous costume and his bruises, his icy gaze and awkwardness, his hands hovering, hesitant, before settling on his shoulders and sitting him up against the wall.

"Well," said Crowley, when he could, his voice a rasp like raked leaves. "That proves the warding holds up."

Castiel huffed a breath, glancing back at the bars. "I suppose so," he agreed quietly. "Are you alright?"

Crowley's eyes slid shut and he sighed, tipping his head back. "No worse than I'll be in three hours," he stated dryly. Castiel didn't respond to that, keeping his mouth shut, and Crowley didn't expect a response. 

The hunters returned later than usual, that night. Perhaps they had been busy, or perhaps they didn't have a solid schedule like Crowley had assumed, or perhaps they did and Crowley was losing time; all answers seemed to be equally plausible. Crowley did not, could not lift his head to watch when they neared, but his nostrils flared like a starving animal, trying to see whether or not they had brought with them more blood, because by now Crowley felt like he might throw up without it to soothe him, or that his tense muscles might seize and convulse, or he might just tear his hair out. He could hear the rush of blood of every person in this blasted hallway, could smell it, and his fangs ached with how useless they were, sitting in his mouth, unable to grow further with the collar restraining his true form, unable to pierce flesh, unable to poison. His stomach was a volatile thing, flipping and turning and cramping and twisting, and his body shook as if he was cold, freezing, sick. He felt like an open wound, festering, and he certainly did not appreciate the way Castiel glowed from where he sat, all holy and celestial and the enemy. His fangs dug into his knuckles. Not the enemy. He was Castiel. Not the enemy. The only damn ally he had in this place. 

The witch was there again to clean up the mess he had created. She swept the shards of glass up into a pan and disappeared, escorted by a bored looking hunter, and one hunter lingered outside of their cell. He glanced down at his watch, then back at him and Castiel. 

"How about the opening round?" He said to another hunter, one of his eyebrows raised. He jabbed his finger in Crowley's direction, and the gesture pierced through the haze in his mind. He sat up a little at the attention and scrutiny, his shoulders high. Surely it had not been that long? Surely. And yet the hunters were coming, unlocking the gate, and Castiel was standing up in front of him, shoulders braced. It was touching, the display of protection, for the whole five seconds it lasted before a remote clicked and he was on the floor, scratching at his collar, his face red.

Crowley hissed and scratched and struggled when they came near, like figures melting right out of a nightmare and reaching out for him. Metal hooks attached to the loops in his collar, and suddenly he was being thrust by his neck to his feet and out of the cell, away from a convulsing Castiel. Fear suddenly spiked in him, and he lashed out, but the poles pulling and pushing him were too long and kept him clean out of reach of any of his tormentors. He did get the chance to see the place, however. He caught the eyes of depressed beings sitting in cells, no more than shells of themselves, either emotionless or sympathetic when they watched him go. 

The hallway branched off into a curving hallway, and they ducked into a room on the left. It was small, but it had a tiny window in this one; right at the top, more so to let some natural light in, but Crowley could just see outside of it and see green grass and trees. The door shut, the poles left, but the remote pulled out. A threat, immediate pain held so carelessly in the palm of a human's hand. With his other hand, the hunter gestured to a rack of clothing. "One with the number thirteen on it," he said. "You can read, can't you?" He sneered.

Crowley glared at him. "Fuck you," he hissed, his hands curling into tight fists. The man's thumb hovered tauntingly over the third button on the remote, and Crowley begrudgingly sifted through the clothes. He found one labelled thirteen, and pulled it off the rack. It was utterly ridiculous. A long, black, torn robe that looked like some fantasy evil wizard costume. Crowley raised an eyebrow at the hunter, who gestured for him to hurry up. Slowly, Crowley took his jacket off and set it aside, and then his tie, waistcoat, and then he lifted his shirt over his head and folded it onto the pile by his side. He was about to step into the ridiculous robe when the hunter suddenly spoke.

"Wait," he snapped, eying him with a glint in his eyes. "Stop."

Crowley, one foot in the robe, one foot out, hesitated, eyes narrowed. "I'm not going out naked," he stated. The hunter shook his head, then he opened the door behind him, shook his head, and called for someone else. A few moments later in which Crowley stepped out of the robe and held it awkwardly, a woman walked in, carrying more of an intimidating air with her than the man with that remote did. The man gestured at Crowley. 

"Turn around, demon," he demanded. With a dark glare and a scowl, Crowley did so. He knew why. They had been there before the demon's blood had even started drawing forth the demonic side in him, but they had been accentuated and accompanied by more. Another part of his serpentine form showing through to his human form, but easily hidden beneath clothing. Patches of scales that followed his spine, black like the midnight sky but shining blood red in light. They spread slightly to follow his hips and pelvis, and curled around with his ribs slightly, glittering with each breath he took. The woman took the scales in with her lips tugged slightly upwards, her eyes holding a glint in them. Then she took long strides to the dress rack, looking through them before she pulled out a pair of dark trousers, leather and detailed like some costume version of a fantasy-type scout, ribbed like sharp scales, thick kneepads. She held them out to Crowley, who took them with his eyebrows drew together.

"No shirt?" He asked in disbelief. 

"They'll love the scales," drawled the woman, as if that was the perfect answer, and then she left. 

"Well, go on. Put them on, demon," said the hunter with the remote, and Crowley hissed at him out of reflex. Nonetheless, he pulled them on, unsurprised when they ended above his ankles. He looked around to see if there were any shoes awaiting him, but it seemed not for as soon as the trousers were on, the hunter was close and hooking him to a pole again, pushing him forwards and out of the changing room. Crowley stumbled over his own feet, and he scratched at the pole attached to his damned collar. He could hear voices, now. Booming laughter, the smell of alcohol, the stench of a werewolf. They opened out to another corridor, and then he was thrust through a door, pole taken away, and the door slammed shut and locked.

Hunters cheered above him, around him, yelled degrading names and comments through the bars separating them, and a werewolf, virtually foaming at the mouth, lunged at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I want to include the fight in this chapter? Yes. I fully intended to, too, but it was getting a bit long and then the next one would be too short, so I settled for ending it like that whoops. If you feel like it, drop a comment, I love hearing your feedback! I hope you enjoyed!


	6. You Are Not A Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for violence and blood and such in this chapter in regards to the fighting. Realising that this fic might have more violence than I first intended, whoops.

The ring was small, and the walls hard stone around them, leading up to about eight feet or so before changing to bars so that the crowd gathered above them could easily see them. The bars were warded as the others were, and too small for them to reach a hand through them to the hunters. There were cameras in the ring, too, that transferred it to television screens for those who weren't right up by the bars to see them. The hunters were all grinning and laughing, throwing horrible comments and jeers his way, and he saw many of them taking in his eyes and the scales with a predator interest. 

_I think they buy some of us._

A shudder ran down Crowley's spine, and he turned away quickly.

There was a werewolf opposite him. A man, a bit shorter but much more muscular than Crowley, with dark, short hair, dark eyes that didn't focus on anything in particular, and he was utterly devoured by bloodlust. Crowley wondered if they had fed him demon flesh for a while and then starved him, leading up to this fight. 

There was a click from his collar, and he almost doubled over as his own energy rushed back to him, rushed to the surface. His fangs grew more, tapping into what the demon blood he'd consumed offered him, becoming sharp and deadly and long enough that they threatened to push past his lips, and his nails grew like talons, and the werewolf's teeth, too, grew sharper and larger, his nails deadly, dirty claws, and he spared not a moment in lunging at Crowley, snarling like an animal. 

Crowley yelped, ducking to the side to avoid it. The werewolf barrelled directly into the wall behind him with a thud that made the hunters laugh. Crowley whirled around, taking several steps away from the werewolf. He held his hands out in front of him, open palmed, fingers spread. "Just calm down there," he said, watching the werewolf pick himself up and shake himself off. He turned back around to face Crowley, his nostrils flaring. If he heard or understood Crowley, he didn't make it known. Crowley danced out of the way of his next lunge once more. "You don't have to be their little pit dog," he said. 

"Hurry up and fight!" One man yelled above his head. Crowley grit his teeth together and refrained from throwing a rude gesture his way. There were tons of them up there, watching them from above. All laughing and chatting loudly among themselves, throwing degrading and dehumanising comments down to them. One of them even reached slightly through the bars to pour beer from their bottle down into the ring, then laughed when the werewolf jumped and snarled. 

Crowley curled his hands into fists, and tried not to think about the fact that everyone around him saw him as nothing more than an animal to play with. He could hardly claim any dignity, dressed up and unwillingly showing off his demonic attributes, money on his head. 

The werewolf lunged, humanity lost to hunger, and his hands clamped down onto Crowley's shoulders, dragging him down to the ground in a mess of limbs and claws and fangs. His nails dug into the scales on the backs of his shoulders, scratching, irritated that they didn't dig into soft flesh, save for his thumbs that dug into his collar bones. His fangs gnashed together inches from his throat, held away only by Crowley's hands on his shoulders, pushing him back up. Crowley dug his nails into him, tearing past the costume he wore and piercing skin, and he shoved him off viciously, then scrambled onto his feet. 

Blood dripped down his fingers, trickling from his nails. Heavy, thick, ruby red, staining his skin. It didn't reek as much as demon's blood, and in the dim light of the ring, it glittered like a gem. Before he could think of tasting it, the werewolf was back again, huffing and grunting and lashing out with clawed swipes. They fell back into a dance of avoiding hits, jumping just out of reach and circling one another, and then he leapt forwards, hands curling around Crowley's throat, pushing him back against a wall. If not for the collar still tight around his neck, he had no doubt that his claws would have been tearing past his skin, then lunging down for his heart that pounded furiously beneath his ribcage. 

To Hell with dodging and attempting to avoid fighting, Crowley was not willing to let a starved werewolf tear him to shreds. Much to the pleasure of the hunters watching, Crowley fought back; clawing at his hands and leaving gashes down his arm, and when the werewolf shook him hard enough by the neck that his head wacked back against the stone wall and his ears rang, he threw out a blind punch that left a resounding crack that echoed in his ears. His body morphed, quickly turning into the large, snake that he was, and he used that to his advantage, wrapping himself bodily around the werewolf's neck, hoping to just choke him out into unconsciousness and leave it there. The crowd seemed to love this, excited cheers at the unexpected transformation. He tightened himself around his neck, eyes glowing amber in the light.

The werewolf clawed at him as if he had a mission to tear his scales off, and then wrenched him from his neck with enough force to give him whiplash, and suddenly he was too close to his mouth for his liking. He forced his bones to change once more, snapping them rapidly into place carelessly in a desperate attempt to get away once more. They fell to the floor with the sudden change, a mess of claws and punches and biting, ringing ears and clouded sight, and beer bottles rang eagerly on the bars above them, cheers and excited yells with each drop of blood that was spilled, at the way the werewolf pinned down his aching hips and rained down punches until Crowley stopped fighting back, hardly feeling now as the werewolf scratched along the skin above his heart. Someone yelled to not stop, to let the werewolf simply continue on its rampage and kill him. Crowley half thought that they would.

But then there was a click and the werewolf fell, his claws and fangs shrank slightly, and he clawed at his own collar. The heavy gate to the ring swung open and hunters flooded in, dragging the werewolf out, and there were arms under his armpits, dragging him out, and a witch being shoved in to clean the place of all the blood before more people were forced into it. Crowley's head lolled back and he closed his eyes. 

He was on a cot when he awoke, with a pleasant haze in his mind. Crowley cracked his eyes open and looked around, and he saw two witches working around him, their hands warm and gentle and healing away the remaining wounds on his body. They were pale and their cheeks hollow, and they looked tired, undoubtedly drained by working with him. But sure enough, there were no hunters in the room, and it had gentle lighting and scented candles and a small window that showed nature and a dark sky.

"Thought there was only one of yous," Crowley commented, lifting himself onto his elbows. Castiel had only mentioned one. 

"There usually only is," the brunette stated. "But the werewolf did a number on you. You needed the extra help. Plus," she said, glanced aside guiltily. "They want you back in tomorrow."

"What?" Crowley spluttered. "No," he said, "I can't. I can't." He shook his head, swinging it from side to side as fear blossomed in him. "I thought they only put people in once a week. I can't. Not again. Not so soon." Although the majority of his wounds had been healed in his time unconscious, and his mind was still hazy about what had actually happened and what wounds he had received, he did not want to relive it. Not so soon. He couldn't handle it. 

"I'm sorry," said the brunette. "They have enough people to give you a few days rest, but I'm afraid that you don't have much of a choice, but I suggest you get as much rest as you can."

Crowley, with trembling arms, forced himself to lie down. He did not want to fight again. He did not want to participate in something so barbaric and dehumanising, something so animalistic. He could not. He had only anticipated having to go in once before Sam and Dean and Aziraphale stormed the place, and unless they came in now, then it was not looking good for him. What about him had made them so fascinated? Did they just enjoy seeing him get beaten up to near death? Enjoy watching a werewolf have to be stopped a step before cannibalising him? What was it? 

Crowley didn't want to know, really. He closed his eyes and dug his nails into the palms of his hands and realised that the collar had been activated once more, for he was once again restrained, shackled down, weak as a human. His body ached, and it was not because of the wounds. He did not regret having to change into his snake form, but the rapid change back had been a bad idea, his bones grating against one another. He highly doubted he would be offered any pain relief, not that he'd ever found one that helped him. 

"What're your names?" He asked. Cracking open his eyes to look at the witches, he waited for an answer.

"Holly," said the brunette. The redhead, whom seemed older and had been working without saying a word, and who looked extremely angry at the situation she was in, hesitated a moment before speaking with a Scottish accent.

"Rowena," she said. Crowley nodded and waved his hand rather than offering it to be shaken. 

"Crowley," he muttered. The redhead raised her eyebrows curiously, eying him curiously. Then she shook her head, stood a little straighter, and roughly applied more balm to a healing cut. Crowley hissed at the sting, glaring up at the ceiling. 

"Have you not ever thought about using this position to get out?" Crowley inquired, glancing over at them. Both witches glanced subconsciously towards the door as if expecting the suggestion to bring forth a hoard of hunters. 

"Everything you've thought of, we've tried," Rowena drawled dryly. "And none of it has worked."

Crowley pressed his lips together and then looked away. He stood up, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot despite Holly's protests. He stood, holding his weight more so on one leg, putting one hand on the wall to steady himself. He walked up to the small window in the wall, and he peered out. It felt like it had been ages since he had seen outside. Not that there was much to be seen; it was dark outside, and there was only a few yards of grass before trees sprouted, thick and dense. He wondered if this building, that seemed so large and endless and confusing, was encircled in trees, right in the middle of nowhere, hidden from everyone. How did other hunters even find it here? How did they get invitations to come watch? 

He finally sat back down. He looked down at his knees, covered in the ridiculous leather trousers, and his lips curled away from his teeth. 

"One of the hunters left this for you," Holly said, and Crowley lifted his head up. She was holding a glass. "Said you have to have it once you're awake." 

Crowley closed his eyes again. Oh, how he craved it, and his fangs ached at the knowledge it was right there. And oh, how he was disgusted with himself as he reached a hand out, plucked it from the witch's grasp, and raised it to his lips. It was empty within two minutes, glass stained black, and it sated the churning craving in his stomach and made him light headed with glee and relief. It felt as if a weight was lifted slightly from his chest, his ribs allowing more air into his lungs. He kept his hand around the glass as if he was reluctant to let it go, as if he willed it to refill. His tongue dashed out along his lips, catching any stray drops, and then he hugged the empty glance between his hands. 

"How long was I out?" He asked, his voice quiet. 

"An hour," said Holly.

"An hour and a half," corrected Rowena. "Usually we would have been much quicker about this, but they've still put a limit on what we're able to do." Rowena shook her head, tutting. She moved to the side and then rubbed another bit of salve into a tender piece of skin by his shoulder. "Bloody hunters. I hate the lot of them." Crowley snorted, scrubbing one of his hands down his face. They hadn't been able to completely heal him up, for he could still feel the back of his head pounding from where it had hit the wall and the floor, and there were still cuts littering his arms and neck and chest, but much smaller than they had been, little more than an inconvenience than a wound.

"I wasn't aware humans could be this... twisted," Crowley muttered. Really, though, with what he had witnessed since the Beginning, he really ought to not be surprised.

"Then you should open your eyes," Rowena commented sourly. Crowley grunted in acknowledgement. 

"Am I done?" He asked. Rowena and Holly looked him up and down, asked him to move this limb and that limb, turn this way and that, and then they nodded. 

"S'pose so," Holly sighed. "You know," she began, derailing from the idea of him leaving, "you're the first demon to come here and seem at all sane."

Crowley snorted. "Why, thank you," he said sarcastically. "I pride myself on my sanity, because as we know, demons are insane."

Holly gave him a look. "You know what I mean," she said. Crowley's lips twitched.

"I do." He stood up once more, slowly, testing his own body out. He felt like he could sleep a century, and he wished he could; take advantage of the haze from the witch's healing and the momentarily peace from cravings the demon blood gave him, and just relax. He knew he wouldn't get the chance. He only had long enough to stretch and shift his weight from foot to foot before the door opened and the hunter from before was there. 

"It alright to go?" Asked the hunter, directing the question to the witch's. Crowley's blood boiled at the _it_ comment, and he glared at the hunter.

"Yes, I am," he said. The hunter huffed an almost amused breath, raised an eyebrow, then came close, taking him by the collar so he could hook the pole back into it. As soon as it was hooked, the distance between them returned and he stumbled over his own feet as he was forced from the witch's room. He continued at a painful pace down the hallway that had Crowley's feet scrambling on the ground, his knees unwilling to go at such a pace until they finally gave out, Crowley crashing onto his hands and knees, face rubbing the floor. There was a tug on his collar from behind and Crowley swung a hand out.

"You're going to have to go at a fucking ssslower pace, unlesss you want to fucking carry me," he hissed, giving him a wide-eyed glare. The hunter seemed annoyed, irritated by the inconvenience which was Crowley, but he waited for him to get up at his own pace, going first to his knees and then onto one foot, then the other, and then they walked at a blessedly slower pace down the hallway and back to his cell. He unlocked it, shoved him forwards into it, then took off the pole, locked the cell, and was gone. 

Castiel rose from his spot, a glimmer of relief in his eyes. "Are you alright?" He asked, looking him up and down. He hesitated at his clothing, or lack thereof, and Crowley waved his hand dismissively. 

"As good as one can be after being mauled by a starving werewolf," he quipped dryly. He slumped eagerly onto the bench, a sigh of relief coming from his lips once he got comfortable. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "I thought you said there was only one witch there. For the healing."

Castiel's eyebrows furrowed. "There was. Holly," he said. Crowley shook his head.

"Two of 'em. Maybe I just supremely got my ass handed to me, but there's two. Holly and Rowena."

Castiel gave him a wide-eyed look. "Rowena?" He echoed. Crowley cracked open an eye to scrutinise him.

"Yeah, Rowena. Redhead, Scottish. She your buddy?" He asked. A look crossed his face.

"No. Not at all," he shook his head, "but I... I know of her. I didn't think she would end up in a place like this, I suppose," he admitted, scrubbing his hands down his jaw.

"Well. Didn't think I would end up in a place like this, either," Crowley stated. He took advantage of the bench, laying down across it, legs hanging uncomfortably off the edge, and he turned so he could rest his forehead against the wall. He closed his eyes again, and willed himself asleep. 

_It was over. Finally over. Lucifer and Michael had disappeared in an explosion of fire far above the Earth, and a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The Winchester's, too, were alright, standing next to an unhurt Castiel, and Gabriel was still marvelling at the display in the sky above them. It casted light down to them, fiery oranges and sunset reds that shone on the bronze of Gabriel's wings and, too, on the pale expanse of Azirapahle's wings, and reflected in his crystal eyes. He was sitting down against a tree, winded, his hands tucked together on his lap and his sword laying discarded in the grass, smoke curling lazily from the blade. His skin shone with the fire in the sky, rosy and breath-taking, and Crowley had once thought that his stars had been the most beautiful creation in all of existences, but now realised that it was rather the angel in front of him._

_"Angel," he called, light headed and giddy. "It's over. We can go home." He began taking steps, grass crunching beneath his feet as they took him closer to his angel. Aziraphale blinked slowly, then turned his head to face him. His eyes were light and watery, and when he blinked a tear escaped, running down his cheek and leaving a golden trail in its wake. Crowley paused, head tilting to the side. "Why are you crying?" He asked._

_And suddenly the show in the sky did not make Aziraphale look so peaceful and content stargazing, but the red highlighted the pained lines of his face, and the blood on his hands that clutched around the blade of Michael's Lance that had been lodged in his stomach. Crowley's eyes blew wide and he skidded to his knees on the ground, hands hovering awkward, hesitant, unsure, before closing around Aziraphale's own stained hands._

_"Hey, hey, you - you gotta heal that, Aziraphale," he urged, pressing down and drawing a pained groan from the angel. "You gotta heal it. You hear me? I can't - I can't heal that, you have to." Aziraphale did not look away from Crowley, his eyes pained and wet and gentle. There was a sad smile on his face that Crowley refused to acknowledge. "Say something, Aziraphale. Say something." His hands were shaking, his heart hammering in his throat, and he reached one hand up to curl in the lapels of Aziraphale's jacket, and he shook him lightly. "Say something, Aziraphale! Don't just - just sssit there, I can't - I can't help you." Aziraphale blinked once, slow, twice, and Crowley's face, failing at looking intimidating an inch from his face as if he could scare Aziraphale into healing himself, faltered, his lip wobbling and eyes wide with fear. He had not seen Michael hurt him. He wasn't able to help. He couldn't do anything._

_"Aziraphale-"_

_The angel reached a gold-stained hand up to cup Crowley's cheek, so gentle, so careful, so loving, and his thumb rubbed across his cheekbone, leaving a golden smear with it, and his hand slid down, down, clasping around his neck. His lips wobbled, unsure of what words to choose, and Crowley was lost for his own words, clogged up in the back of his mouth, his tongue heavy and holding them in place. He just waited for Aziraphale to find his voice, and when he did, it was quiet and almost lost to the wind._

_"My... my dear boy," he breathed. "I love you... very much. And I am so... so proud of you, my dear." He took a breath that got caught in his throat, and he moaned when he had to cough. Crowley clung onto his wrist when his grip on his neck loosened, weakened, and he shook his head no, no, no. It was supposed to be over, and they were supposed to go home, or make a new home for the both of them._

_Aziraphale looked through him. "And I... I forgive you."_

Crowley jerked awake, hitting his forehead off against the wall and almost tumbling right off the bench. He was breathing heavily, fast and sharp and wheezing, and he was shaking and sweating, simultaneously cold and hot, and he tasted blood and bile in the back of his throat. He groaned, dropping his head into his hands and screwing his eyes shut. Behind him, Castiel shuffled awkwardly and cleared his throat.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Crowley thought he'd be rich if he had a pound for every time Castiel had asked him that since their kidnapping. Crowley didn't reply, nor did he move to sit up or turn around. He was still shaken by his dream, could still feel Aziraphale's hand on his neck, slick with blood, and it was not real, he had to tell himself. Aziraphale was fine, and he would see him soon. He would be on his way to save him, no doubt. 

His skin felt like it was on fire. His knuckles found their way to his mouth, where his fangs pierced the skin and tried to distract himself. Aziraphale was not dead, and he was not dying, either, and logically he knew that Castiel's heartbeat was not really that loud, nor was the demon's who was three cells to the left, and what time was it? How long had he slept? How long had he been there? Was it dark outside, storming and raining, or was it warm and sunny, and was someone taking their dog for a walk in the woods less than half a mile from this cell, utterly oblivious? Or were hunters piling into their cars to come and drive here to bet on creatures and make trophies out of some of them? The skin around Crowley's nails found themselves picked at and torn in his anxiety, and he resisted clamping a hand over his ears to try and drown out Castiel's rushing blood.

The hunters came at some point, once more shoving trays through the gates. Crowley's head snapped up, eyes intent. They slid a tray through their gate. It held one glass of holy water for Castiel. A noise escaped Crowley's throat. Could they not see he was _starving_?

He forced himself to sit up, then, and he watched with wide eyes the retreating back of the hunter as he carried on distributing trays of varying food. He could smell it all, so tauntingly, agonisingly close. The demon to their right guzzled it down greedily, heard even through the thick stone walls, and Crowley stared at the ground between his feet. They were going to starve him to death, then. He had pissed them off too much, and they weren't even going to bother putting him into the arena to be killed for sport. Or perhaps they'd wait until he couldn't remember his name (poor choice, he thought, because was it Crowley or was it Crawley?) and then they'd drag him out and perhaps pry off his scales and make a pattern with them, or a necklace, and they'd have his eyes, too, then dump his body, and he'd discorporate and go straight into Hell's open, unwelcoming arms - not that that mattered much, because Hastur stood, now, melting forth from the shadows of the cell and saying that _You are unforgiveable, and Hell does not forget, and you will be punished accordingly, and no one can save you, and no one will ever forgive you, and you will be undone and remade._

Crowley jerked back, then, pushing himself up against the wall, and he threw his hands up when Hastur descended on him, smelling of smoke and pollution and dirt and decay, and then he melted into a cloud of smoke just as he came into contact with Crowley. He dared to look again, and all he saw was Castiel watching him carefully, concerned, and Hastur had never set foot in this cell. His mind was simply playing games with him. 

Crowley pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and moaned.

"If we didn't want humans to be scared, then should She not offer a less intimidating form?" Crowley asked. His eyes rolled over to Gabriel, sitting nearby. The angel looked up from the fish by his feet, and then he shrugged.

"Well, then you wouldn't be intimidating enough for sinners then, would you?" He replied. Crowley hummed and looked up above him. The sky above him shimmered, and he had the distant feeling that it was not endless, but rather ended just a few feet above his head if he were to stand. Ridiculous, though, because he was laying in the grass, out in the open.

"Yelling be not afraid does not make us less intimidating either, though."

"No, but you're supposed to be among humans, anyway," said Gabriel. He prodded at a fish and watched it lean into his touch. "Their healer, protector and all that."

"I am excited for them," Crowley admitted. "Humans. Such a fascinating idea."

Gabriel smiled slightly. "Oh, yes. Free will and a mind large enough to comprehend it. It opens doors that didn't even exist before them."

"Doors don't exist now, Gabriel."

"Well, of course not. But we still have that phrase," Gabriel responded. "And I'm sure it'll catch on."

"Don't waste your energy trying to make _catchphrases_ for humans, Gabriel."

"I'm the fun one, dear brother. I get to do that kind of thing. She still has a few years of Creating to do, though, before humans come into this whole thing. Antarctica isn't done yet." Gabriel grinned, a bright, wide thing. "But so many opportunities. It was getting rather boring in the universe."

Crowley hummed once more. "I heard something," he said, "just a little rumour-"

"Do not tell me you've been listening to Lucifer again," Gabriel sighed fondly. "Nothing good is going to happen from that, you know."

Crowley huffed a sigh. "I know. I am well aware." He paused. He knew that, because he had already lived throughout Lucifer's Fall, and his own Fall, too. He had already lived through this conversation. When he blinked, Castiel was in Gabriel's place, sitting on the floor of their cell. When he noticed Crowley suddenly stop and focus on him, he perked up.

"Are you, ah, with me?" He asked, tentative. Crowley blinked several times, eyebrows drawn together.

"What do you mean?" He asked. Had he ever left? Had he not been elsewhere a second ago?

"You've been rambling for the past two hours - or so, I can't really tell time," said Castiel. "I couldn't get your attention back here."

It took several moments for Crowley to process that and put together what had happened. Right. He had been kidnapped. He was going through withdrawals. He was lucky to have the moment of lucidity. 

"I'm fine," he croaked, throat dry from rambling incessantly. He sat up, back cracking, and he touched the bench beneath him, then the wall behind him, cold and solid. His tongue dashed out along his teeth, along his fangs poking painfully from his gums, aching for something, a shiver seized his body. 

"We need to get out," he blurted suddenly. 

"Sam and Dean will be coming," said Castiel. "Soon. We just need to wait for them. They will be coming soon-"

"No they won't!" Crowley snapped. He stood to his feet, and so did Castiel. When Crowley prowled up to him, standing a few inches from him, the angel didn't back down either. His jaw set and all sets of eyes on him, he nodded. 

"They will be-"

Crowley fisted his hands in Castiel's ridiculous gladiator costume and he shoved him back up against the wall, his teeth grinding together. "Your little hunter friendsss are not coming, not now, not ever; for all you know they ssset thisss up, huh? They sssomewhere in the crowd? Betting on your head? They behind all thisss, huh?" 

"You don't know what you're talking about, Crowley," said Castiel, impressively keeping his voice level. "You need to sit down."

"Don't tell me what I need to do, _angel_ ," he snarled. He shook him slightly, and blood, both his and Castiel's and the people in the cells around him, roared in his ears. 

"Crowley, I'm asking you to sit down, please," Castiel requested, calm and level as he reached up, hands covering Crowley's and prying his fingers from his clothes. Crowley yanked his hands from his grasp as if it burned, and then in a blind rage, he lunged, pulling his fist back and colliding it with his cheek. Castiel staggered, a hand on his cheek, and Crowley lashed out again, claws poised and eyes blazing, and he got a scratch across Castiel's other cheek before Castiel ducked and returned a surprisingly strong punch that left Crowley's high-strung body crumpling to the ground, ears ringing. He didn't bother getting up, his sudden energy gone immediately. Castiel stayed on his feat, hesitant and wary. Crowley blinked at the wall opposite him until it came into focus.

" 'm sorry," he whispered. With a relieved sigh, Castiel lowered himself to the floor.

"It's fine," replied the angel. "We will get out of here."

"Right," replied Crowley emptily. He found it hard to believe, now, and he closed his eyes to avoid the celestial light rolling off of Castiel, and when he thought again of Aziraphale, Aziraphale with a glowing gold wound, it was Crowley holding the weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I fully intended to write this full fight scene and a bit after it in this chapter, then decided that this is as good a place as any to leave a cliffhanger, because who would I be without cliffhangers? Anywho, I hope you enjoyed! I quite enjoyed writing this part tbh


	7. Cracked, Peeling, Riddled With Disease

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

The hunters came. Castiel stood in front of Crowley who had not bothered to get off the floor until there was a click from his collar and he was on the floor, glaring until he was overcome with pain and his muscles wouldn't cooperate, and Crowley offered no help until the threat of being dragged along the floor by the pole attached to his collar presented itself, and only then did he scramble to his feet and ended up alternating between staggering and scrambling on his hands and knees to try and keep up with the hunter's pace.

Was he being dragged through a hunter's den or was he in the pristine halls of Heaven? Or perhaps the dark, endless hallways of Hell that never ended, being brought to some endless pit to fall for a few years for punishment? Or maybe he was dead, and this was Hell for demons.

He all but fell into the ring, disorientated and dazed, and scratched the wall for purchase. There were flashing lights above him, someone with a blinding camera, and cheering and yelling and before the collars were deactivated, a hunter came close, held a glass to his lips, and let three drops of blood fall into his mouth. Then he left, and the gate locked Crowley in, and the collar deactivated. 

The demon hissed and he smelled so clearly of blood, and Crowley was the first to lunge with a red haze settling over his vision. 

The demon, he would have noticed if he wasn't so busy trying to sate his thirst, was the same tall demon that he had been kidnapped with. Tall and dark, with curled horns moulding out of his head, and a centaur-like costume on - or maybe that was really just his legs. He dragged his hoof over the ground like a bull ready to charge, and Crowley ducked out of the way of his head and his horns when he lunged, all gnashing fangs and scratching claws singed with hellfire. The demon tried to throw him across the ring and he dug his claws into him, and they tumbled to the ground, hissing and huffing. He jumped forwards, and his fangs struck home in his shoulder, piercing flesh and tasting blood. Like a vampire, Crowley clung onto him, eyes half lidded, his fangs stealing blood and pumping in venom that instantly made the other demon roar and strike out, grabbing a fistful of his hair and tearing him back. 

Crowley tumbled over the floor, blood dripping from his mouth and down his chin, warm on the scales of his belly, and he didn't feel so starved any more, but he _needed_ more. The demon charged at him, and they slammed back against the wall, Crowley's head thudding back off of it and stunning him for a moment. Long enough for the demon to crank back his fist and crash it into his stomach. Crowley doubled over, clawing at him and leaving deep, weeping grooves down his arms, and the demon landed another punch across his face that brought him to his knees. The demon pushed him back against the wall, and he set down a large, heavy hoof on Crowley's chest and bore down on him with enough force that his ribs groaned and he heard cracks.

Like a lightning bolt, Crowley shrunk into a snake and shot out from under his foot, up his leg and he sank his fangs back into his flesh. The demon stamped his hoof again and again, letting out a guttural yell, and he tugged at him until Crowley felt as if he might be torn into two parts. He was back into a human, pain from the too-fast transformation forgotten to bloodlust, and they tumbled to the ground, one side of the arena. Kicks landed and he threw his own, blind and angry, and he still hardly knew what was going on.

Was the yelling around him that of eager hunters, or of denizens of Hell? Was he in a dark ring or a cage hanging in an endless pit, was Hastur sneering at him, Beelzebub indifferent and just wanting it over with so they could get another loyal demon. Flashes blinded him, and a strike came from this way and that way, a hoof against his rins or his back, horns threatening to forcibly scrape off his scales. Someone's blood, his own or the other demon's, was on his tongue, hot and Heavenly, and he threw a punch, then rushed forwards, sitting himself upon the demon's hips, and he threw another punch, and another, and another. The demon bucked and clawed at him, at his neck and his mouth and his eyes, and Crowley didn't stop his own assault until the demon stopped moving, his breaths as laboured as Crowley's. 

No one opened the gate to stop him. No hunters intervened, even with the other demon unconscious, and the hunters above him yelled at him to keep going, to tear him apart. He almost did. Back hunched, wide eyes staring down at the bloody face beneath him, he raised a hand to his mouth, and pressed his knuckles to his teeth, split and bloody, and he staggered onto his feet. There was yelling, echoing in his ears, deafening, and he the hunters leering down at him morphed into the demons in Hell, crowding to watch his demise, and was Aziraphale in that crowd? Forced to watch Crowley die? Perhaps they would throw Aziraphale in with him, and leave the gate open and let demons flood in and tear them both apart. Crowley could imagine his screams. 

He tripped over the demon on the floor, and threw himself bodily at the gate. Pounding and scratching and pushing at it as if his life depended entirely on him getting out of there. His fingers curled around them, claws scratching across it, and he slammed his shoulder into it again and again and again. The way it burned did not matter, for he was going to die. They, whoever they were, were going to kill him.

The gate creaked. Blood trickled from a broken scale on his shoulder, and he continue to slam himself against it. Then it gave; blowing open, and he tumbled out onto his hands and knees, and the people around him yelled in alarm. It was only then that people came running to him. Hunters? Demons? Angels? He didn't know; didn't care. He just ran. Scrambling like a golden retriever on ice, he ran down the corridor, and through a winding corridor full of cells. People pressed their faces up to the bars, watching him with wide eyes as he ran, free, and some begged him to open their cells. He didn't have time. They'd catch him. 

He turned a corner, tripped over, scrambled to his feet as people with sticks coursing with electricity rushed towards him, and he turned on heel and ran the other way. Was Aziraphale here? He needed Aziraphale. He was the only person who didn't want to see him dead. And why was he so painfully hungry? His tongue dashed out across the blood staining his chin. An alarm blared around him, ringing in his ears.

Someone lunged at him, and someone screamed at the same time as electricity ran through him. Crowley lashed out with hands and feet and claws and fangs, then he continued to run, faster, faster, faster. 

There was a door. A door with light beneath it, and he lunged, splintered the wood as he threw it open with a resounding thud, and there was green grass beneath his aching feet, and a darkening sky, a gorgeous, gentle sunset with golds and pinks above him, and cool wind blowing his matted hair from his face. Trees stood, towering and dense opposite him, and if he just got there he could call for Aziraphale. 

There was a click from his neck, and then white hot pain, and grass tickled his chin and his cheek. People surrounded him, boots blocking out the trees and freedom, and fingers hooked beneath the collar around his neck, dragging him backwards, and everything went black.

Hell always promised pain. If they were angry with him, they promised pain. Angry at one demon, then everyone was at risk of punishment. Discorporation, death and pain was around every corner, a justifiable punishment for every inconvenience one caused. They promised to make him forget his name. They promised to make him lose his mind. He didn't think they could do anything like this. 

When he came to, his vision swam in and out, wavering like the surface of water. His tongue felt heavy and thick, three times larger in his mouth, and there was a cold sheet of grey in front of him. He was rocking, and there were gentle voices around him, and his eyes fell shut again. 

"Can you hear us?" A feminine voice asked, floating to his ears, soft and warm and safe. Crowley peeled his eyes open and tilted his head in the direction of the voice. "Good," the woman said and there were small, gentle hands on his arms. "How are you feeling? Can you say something?"

Crowley's tongue twitched in his dry mouth, and he tried to remember where he knew that voice from. 

Valentina. The witch. He turned his head further, and he fell from his side and onto his back. Pain laced through his right shoulder and he gasped. 

"Try not to move. You've not been healed. You only just stopped bleeding."

"What?" The word came out quiet, muffled. He looked at her, sitting, swaying on her knees next to him. Ava was to her right, and Castiel to her left. They were in a van, and the van looked rather like a murder scene; blood staining the floor and the walls, supposedly wherever Crowley had been. Castiel bore a spit lip and a crooked nose, but he didn't think that warranted the amount of blood around the place.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Ava asked. "Just need to, you know, check that you're not on your way to immediate death."

" 's nice," Crowley commented. He closed his eyes. What had happened? He knew glimpses, but the last solid memory he had was leaving Holly and Rowena and returning to his cell. He swallowed, delaying his answer. "Fought," he guessed. "Something... somethin' happened."

"You escaped," said Ava, a hint of awe and jealousy in her voice. "What did you do? How did you do that?"

Crowley screwed his eyes shut. He remembered running. He remembered fear. When he flexed his hands, they burned, and he looked down at them. There were burns across his palms in the shape of ruins, and he snorted, holding his hands up. "Guess I just... opened the gate," he muttered with dry humour. He shivered, and ignored the rather unhygienic state of the van as he curled up on the floor. 

"Where are we going?" He asked. "What happened?"

"There was a break in," said Castiel. Crowley tilted his head to face him, and he quirked an eyebrow. "I'm sure it was Sam and Dean. They know we're here."

"And yet we're still in this van," Crowley stated dryly. He closed his eyes. 

"They will come," insisted Castiel, in a voice that left little room for argument. Crowley wasn't a demon known for his compliance.

"When, then?" He snapped. "Before or after they hang your wings up above the door?"

"Soon," Castiel said. Crowley grit his teeth together.

"You know," he said, "when I first met you all, Dean reeked of Hell. What's that all about? Did he go about drinking demon blood? Have you had to lock him down when he got too thirsty?" He asked, lacing venom into each word. Castiel glared icily at him, his jaw set.

"No," Castiel said. His lips pursed and his chest rose and fell with breaths he forced to stay steady. "You need to rest, Crowley." 

Crowley bit back a retort. He was exhausted and dizzy and everything hurt. He wanted Aziraphale. Was this what homesickness felt like, he wondered.

"How long have we been in the van?" He asked. 

"It's been about fifteen minutes, I guess. They hurried us all out during the alarm. You were already in the van. I thought you were dead," Ava admitted.

"Feels it," Crowley muttered. He was suddenly very grateful that there wasn't another demon in the van with them. He didn't want to think of what he might do if that had been the case.

He closed his eyes once more. He wanted to go home and collapse on his bed. He wanted to terrorise his plants and remind them why they were so worthless, so pathetic, because they couldn't even fight back when humans came up to them and forced him to drink what was essentially poison, and they complied like putty in their tormentors hands, and so ruthlessly beat another victim of the hunters games-

Perhaps Crowley did project a bit onto his plants. 

Fingers snapped in front of his face. He recoiled, opening his eyes.

"You lost a shit ton of blood, buddy," said Ava. "Keep your eyes open."

" 's not that bad," Crowley grumbled. 

"Have you seen yourself?" Ava snorted.

"Was a bit busy to check myself out," Crowley commented. He hissed as the van went over a bump in the road, the floor of the van digging harshly into his back. 

"Well, you're fucked."

"Appreciate your honesty."

Ava shrugged. "I keep it real," she said. She leaned back against the van wall, then, turning her attention to Valentina.

Despite the darkness encroaching his vision, he forced himself to keep his eyes open. He watched the swirling van's roof, and tried to ignore the stabbing pain that came from his joints, his hips, his ribs, his shoulder, his head, his stomach, his hands, his feet; everywhere. Each minute took them further away from the hunter's old base, and further away from Sam and Dean, should it be true that it was them that had broken in. He hoped to not-God that it was. Oh, how he hoped it was them, and that they were on the hunter's trail. 

Crowley closed his eyes.

"What's your story, then?"

Crowley's eyes flicked over to Ava. Valentina was asleep, using her shoulder as a pillow, and Castiel snapped out of his thoughts. It took several moments for her question to process in Crowley's hazy mind.

"What?"

"Your story," insisted the vampire. "How'd you get caught, who are you, etcetera."

Crowley shrugged his good shoulder. "You know my name. I'm a demon. Offered my... help to some people, including him," he glanced to Castiel. "They found some demons, I helped listen in on what the demons were saying, and the hunter's came for them. Castiel and I... we just happened to be there, too."

Ava hummed. "You got people on the outside?"

Crowley snorted. "We're not in jail," he said.

"Basically."

"I s'pose," Crowley grumbled. He swallowed and nodded slowly. "Yeah. I do."

Ava quirked an eyebrow at his reaction. "Didn't know demon's loved."

Crowley glared at her. "Yeah, well, I'm full of fuckin' surprises," he said.

"No need to get snappy with your blood loss and hunger," she teased. Crowley huffed a breath.

"I think I'm allowed," Crowley muttered. Ava snorted.

"What's their name?" She asked, derailing back to the original topic. Crowley hesitated, glancing at Castiel whose gaze bore into him.

"Aziraphale," he said. "He's - he's an angel. He'll be coming for me. He will be." He wasn't sure if he was talking to Ava or himself in the last sentence, and he thought of Aziraphale, who had told him to be safe.

"How did you meet him?" Ava asked. He wondered if she was only asking him so much so he stayed awake. He didn't mind talking if it was about Aziraphale. 

"Eden," he rasped. "The garden. Only angel on Earth at that point, and I couldn't just sit around and wait for Adam and Eve to have their kids to talk to someone else." Crowley's lips tilted upwards. "He gave away his damn flaming sword 'cause he wanted them to stay safe. Any other angel wouldn't have done something so... stupidly good." He laughed to himself despite the way it hurt his ribs. He closed his eyes and pictured Aziraphale. He would be on his way. He was probably less than a mile away from him. So close, so close, so close. 

"He got caught in the French revolution, once, 'cause he wanted some damn crepes. Had to go save him. If you ask me, he did it on purpose." Feverish, Crowley tilted his head up to look at the roof of the van, his lips parted slightly. He could talk about Aziraphale forever. He had six thousand years worth of memories he could go on about, from listening to him from the bowels of the Ark, to bringing him chocolates and hiding from Not-Gabriel when he paid a visit to his bookshop, and to the way he knew Aziraphale sent off those government people inquiring about his bookshop, and how he owned the world best and worst bookshop, with original copies that no one knew existed, and with ridiculous opening hours and an icy gaze that could stave off even the most daring of customers, and how he glowed that time Crowley brought him to a new café in Japan and introduced him to a new dish, and how there was that one Christmas that Crowley spent in a feverish daze but he was certain he hadn't hallucinated Aziraphale by his side with cold cloths until he was well again. He could relive each and every conversation, each petty argument, and he could sketch a picture in photographic-precision of him at any given point within his memories, whether it was the last time he'd seen him or the first time, the way his eyes lit up as he read a new book, or the way his eyebrows drew together as he moaned about paperwork, or how he wrung his hands whenever Crowley had implied that he might dare lie about something. 

"Sounds like you're whipped," commented Ava, breaking through his thoughts.

Crowley's brows furrowed. "Not since the eighteenth century," he muttered with a grimace. Ava's eyebrows drew together.

"What?"

"What?" Crowley echoed. 

"I meant that it sounds like you're head over heels for him, not - shit," Ava spluttered. "How old are you?" She asked. Crowley didn't understand how that was relevant, but he gave the question thought anyway. He shrugged his good shoulder.

"Lost count. Legally? Like, seventy-six, or something. I need to renew that ID," he muttered thoughtfully. "A... a few millennia. Watched Her make Earth. Was fun."

Ava exhaled a long breath. "Damn," she said. "That must be odd."

"It's normal for me," Crowley pointed out. "It would be weird to live for only one hundred years."

"I suppose so," admitted Ava. 

Crowley's forked tongue dashed out across his lips. "You?" He asked. "What's your story?"

Ava pressed her lips together. "Turned into a vampire when I was twenty-five," she said. She looked grim at the memory, her eyes distant and jaw set. "Ran away and isolated myself for a while. Ah, I met Valentina years ago." Her red lips turned up. "Met her because she tried to kill me." She laughed. "Some initiation for some delusional coven, so they could get some fangs. She tried, but she couldn't hurt a fly if she tried. We kept running into each other, and I helped her with some of her little spells, and..." Ava shrugged, and ran a hand softly through Valentina's hair. "Been a while."

Crowley hummed in acknowledgement. "You got somewhere to go after this?" He asked. 

"We have a cottage somewhere," she said. "We'll go there."

"Good," Crowley murmured, then nodded and looked away. The van turned a corner. Crowley's ribs groaned, and so did Crowley. Had they been in such a rush that they couldn't even set his ribs, or at least put some bandages in the van with them to put on themselves. Perhaps it was just part of how poor he felt that he hardly paid mind to the fact that his blood was smeared across the van like a murder scene. He wondered how the other demon he had fought was, surely shoved into the back of another van like himself, still injured. Crowley found, though, that he didn't actually really care. His consciousness dipped in and ought, moments of lucidity blurred together. When the van stopped he had no idea how long they had been driving, but Ava too had fallen asleep, startling when the doors were thrown open over an hour after the van stopped and hunters reached for them. Ava Valentina filed out, followed by Castiel with a scowl, and Crowley found that he couldn't move his limbs at all. He couldn't imagine how he had managed to talk earlier with how he felt as if his body had shut down and he was simply using his eyes as windows to look out, locked inside and helpless. No matter how much the hunter's yelled at him, he couldn't move to get out of the van. 

Castiel said something, to him or the hunters he wasn't sure, and then he climbed back into the van, linked his arms under Crowley's and dragged him to the edge of the van. Then he changed his grip to that of a bridal carry, and Crowley caught a glimpse of a two story building before he fell unconscious. 

He awoke on the floor, and surprisingly not in pain. Or, not in as much pain. There was still a full body ache, a sharp stinging in his shoulder and hands, but he didn't feel so heavy, so disassociated and confused as he had before. There were bandages on his hands, and around his shoulder and on his left foot. The thing most demanding of his attention was not the pain, but the hunger, the withdrawals. He lifted his head up and carefully sat up, blinking.

The cell was smaller. Cramped, and if he sat with his back against one wall his feet brushed the other wall. It was much darker, too, and colder, and Castiel was sitting opposite him, head resting against the wall. For the first time, he looked tired. 

"Hey," said Crowley. Ice blue eyes, on his face and on his arms and neck, all turned to regard him. "What happened?"

"We've been here a while," Castiel stated. "A new base, I guess. They took you to the witches, but I suppose you didn't wake up since we arrived."

Crowley nodded. "Makes sense," he muttered, then rested his head back down on his scaly forearm and brought his knees a few inches closer to his chest. "They done anything?" He asked.

"Not yet. I think they're more on edge, now, what with the break-in earlier."

" 's nice," he mumbled tiredly. His eyelids fluttered. He drummed his nails, which were more claws than nails, really, on the floor, then scratched them. He thought it was funny, really, how fast he had lost motivation. Coming into it he hadn't expected to feel so utterly drained so quickly. He hadn't taken half of Hell's threats to him as seriously as he took this. His eyes rolled towards Castiel once more. "Do you think that you'll get out of here?" He asked. Castiel narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Yes," he said after a moment. "And soon."

Crowley huffed a breath. " 's good," he said. 

"And so will you," Castiel said. Crowley raised his eyebrows and hummed.

"You..." He pointed at Castiel. "I respect you." 

Castiel's head tilted to the side. "Uh... thank you," he replied sheepishly, confusion evident in his tone. Crowley offered no response. In their time here, Crowley had gained a respect for Castiel. He could have easily ignored Crowley since the moment they got caught, and offered no comfort or cooperation, and yet he had. Crowley respected that, and he respected him.

He simply closed his eyes and tried to ignore the way images flashed on the back of his eyelids, and slid into blessed unconsciousness.

The gate creaked open and Crowley opened his eyes to see hunters coming, and first they looked like demons, with weeping, sagging skin, and animal eyes, before his mind corrected itself and they were human once more. They reached out for Castiel, and Crowley struggled upwards onto his feet. If Castiel would stand up for him, the least he could do was try to return it. And a part of him feared being left alone in this place. Who would prevent them from coming and taking him to turn him into a trophy if he was alone? 

He stood by Castiel's side, lifting his head a little in defiance. They seemed to completely ignored him until they jerked Castiel forwards to the door, and Crowley dug his nails into the hunter's arm and tried to pull him off the angel. They didn't even need to use that dreaded remote, for the man jerked him away with a yell and fury, and his head hit the wall and he crumpled to the floor with ringing ears, and he watched Castiel's feet stumble over one another as he disappeared down the hallway. 

He realised, distantly, he had no idea where Ava or Valentina was. They weren't opposite him any longer, and he couldn't see them. He thought they didn't deserve this, and he hoped that they were as safe as they could be in this circle of Hell.

"I don't understand why you are so eager for war, Michael," Crowley sighed, shaking his head. "This needn't happen."

"This isn't an over reaction, Raphael," said the angel with exasperation and irritation clear in each word. 

"It _is_ ," he stressed. "Lucifer means no harm by it, he just - he just-"

"Whether or not he means harm, Raphael, matters not. Her will is final. It is not in us to argue and oppose Her. It is not Lucifer's right, and it is not _yours_ , either," Michael hissed, intense and burning. Crowley grimaced and glanced aside, along the flashing cosmos of which they stood among with Gabriel.

"I understand that, but you _know_ Lucifer. You know this isn't what he wants-"

"If he didn't want it, he would not see it so!" Michael snapped. "You ought to watch what words you spit, Raphael."

Crowley closed his mouth with enough force to rattle his jaw. He glanced at Gabriel, who was studying the vast expanse of space around him, unwilling to take part in such a conversation. Crowley inhaled slowly, his hands clasped behind his back, and he opened his mouth.

Metal groaned, and his eyes turned to watch as space crumbled and dissolved like sand, giving way to a small cell. A figure was shoved forwards and Castiel stumbled inside with a grunt, falling to his knees. When he didn't get back up, Crowley blinked and shuffled towards him. 

"Hey," Crowley rasped, turning to the bars. "He needs a healer, you can't leave him like this!"

"Later," dismissed a hunter over his shoulder as he retreated carelessly, and left Crowley to look down at Castiel, covered in bruises and half-dried blood, his eyes screwed shut. 

"Hey, hey, Castiel; look at me," Crowley said, tapping his bruised cheek. The angel flinched away from his touch with a grimace, but he peeled open his eyes and, after a few moments, his eyes focused in on Crowley's face. "Good. Good. How bad is it? I - I can't do anything," he muttered, his teeth grinding together. 

" 'm fine," Castiel grunted. Crowley rolled his eyes.

"How bad?" He insisted. As he tried to sit up, Crowley helped, shifting him until he was propped up against the wall.

"I'll be fine," said Castiel. " 's not as bad as it looks."

Crowley gave him an extremely sceptical look before raking his eyes up and down him. At the very least, he appeared to have no broken bones. Cuts and bruises, and he held himself an odd way and his eyes fluttered and didn't entirely focus, but he could hold himself up and talk and was lucid and coherent. 

"You better not be lying to me," Crowley growled beneath his breath. "What was it? Are they fighting again? So soon?" His eyebrows furrowed. Castiel's head dropped in a nod.

"Yes," he confirmed, and Crowley cursed mentally. So soon? Or had he lost time? Perhaps they'd already been there days, spent in a feverish daze or unconscious on a cot with Rowena and Holly. He had no way of knowing at all, and it drove him insane. 

"Tell me about Sam and Dean," he suddenly requested. He sat back opposite Castiel. 

"Why?" Castiel grunted, opening his eyes a crack to peer at him. Crowley gave him a look.

"Because I want to know about them. Or because I want to stay lucid and I want you to stay awake. Whatever answer takes your fancy," he stated dryly. Castiel grunted at that, then shifted, hands shaking on the ground. He sighed and rested his head back against the wall.

"I... I saved Dean," he said. "From Hell." Crowley raised an eyebrow and clung to his words. "I rescued him, and I was supposed to guide and supervise him. I... we did not get on. I came to realise Heaven's corruption, and Dean and Sam helped me. I owe my freedom to them."

Crowley closed his eyes. "I think that counteracts the freedom part," he said. "Dean was in Hell?"

Castiel nodded. "He sold his soul to save Sam. Hellhounds killed him. As Michael's vessel, he couldn't stay there. It was my job to raise him."

"Your wings," Crowley blurted, and Castiel's eyes opened to stare intently at him. "S'pose that's what happened to 'em, huh?" 

Jerkily, Castiel nodded. "Yes," he murmured. 

Crowley shrugged. "Not like I'm one to judge," he said nonchalantly. 

"You were the snake at Eden," stated Castiel, derailing the conversation from his wings. Crowley allowed it. 

"Yup," he confirmed. "Whispered sweet nothings into Eve's ear." He snorted. "Hardly did a thing, really."

"What were they like?" Castiel asked. Crowley raised his eyebrows.

"Adam and Eve?"

"Yes."

Crowley exhaled. "I... I preferred Eve. More curious, more questioning. She had a good humour, she did. Complained to me when her and Adam had an argument over the shade of the walls of the garden. Complained about pregnancy and how it still sucked even if Aziraphale told her it was a gift," he said with a breathy laugh. "Adam was nice, too, I suppose, but so head strong. Not in a good way, in my opinion. Cain and Abel..." He trailed off, his throat suddenly tight. Aziraphale had accused him of tempting Cain into killing Abel, back when they were _enemies,_ but Crowley hadn't done a thing. Unless his very presence was enough to tempt someone, for he had been present during the murder. He had felt something was off, and as a snake he had followed them from shadows and watched in horror as Cain drew Abel away and slew him. 

Castiel raised his eyebrows. Crowley cleared his throat. "I witnessed Abel's death, too. They were good children. It was a shock to us all."

"Why a snake?" Castiel asked. Crowley's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"Why choose a serpent?" He asked. Crowley tipped his head to the side, then glanced away.

"The snake was to be an animal of healing, once," he stated. "It was only fitting to change my sign to something cursed when I Fell, was it not?"

Castiel pressed his lips together and didn't reply. Crowley lowered his gaze to his arms. More scales had blossomed forth on his skin, like gloves up his hands, hard on his knuckles, glittering but spreading out, fewer as they climbed up to his elbows, and the same said for his shoulders, drifting down his biceps, hardening around his elbows. They glittered across his collar bones, and were thick and uncomfortable over his legs, beneath his clothes, and beneath his jaw and along his cheekbones and his forehead, the column of his throat. Crowley did not like it. It was wrong and inhuman, and it was a secret. 

He had scales that decorated down his spine that curled around his ribs and hips, but they had remained forever hidden beneath his clothes. Now he wore them out openly, disgusting, shameful, and he hated it. He was grateful simply that Castiel had not said a word about them. 

They continued to speak. Conversations drifting between their experiences with humans and Earth, distracting themselves from the groans and curses and thuds around, and the aches ever present in their bodies and the festering hopelessness and desperation in their chests like ivy growing over their ribs. They rambled until a door groaned and trays slid inside their cells, and Crowley and Castiel sat, scrutinising their tray. 

"I think they're both for you," Crowley stated, glancing from the two glasses to Castiel.

"I don't think so," Castiel said, quiet. Crowley scrutinised him.

"How? They can not expect me to drink that."

Castiel toyed with his lower lip. "Because it's mine," he stated. Crowley's eyes widened and he pointed at the glass.

"Yours? What the fuck did they do to you?" He spluttered. Castiel grimaced.

"Before... before the fight, they took me aside. I thought... I didn't know why they wanted it, but I didn't think it would be for... for this." 

"I can't drink that," stated Crowley, shaking his head. "That'll - that'll kill me."

Castiel didn't reply, but he nodded silently. He stretched gingerly, hissing, then Crowley stood to retrieve the glass of holy water, holding it away from himself and to Castiel. They did not touch the glass of angel blood, glowing and as blue as Castiel's celestial eyes, too disturbed by it to even dare attempting. Castiel reluctantly drank his holy water as he had become accustomed, and Crowley placed the glass back down when he was done. They didn't speak again, dread and anticipation interwoven in their muscles as they waited for the hunter's to come and undoubtedly demand one of them drink Castiel's blood. The idea made Crowley feel sick, the demon blood still boiling in his veins recoiling, his entire being recoiling. Surely that would kill him. Surely they could not expect him to drink it.

The hunter's returned, and their presence brought forth a tremor in Crowley's left hand and sent his heart pounding. He refused to look out the bars, staring at the wall opposite him to the left of Castiel's head. They tapped a cattle prod against the bars, then cracked the electricity on it that made him and Castiel jump and finally turn to look at the hunter.

"That's yours, demon," said the hunter. He was unfamiliar, not one he had seen before. Crowley looked between the hunter and the blood. 

"That'll kill me," said Crowley. "You - you can't expect me to drink that."

"It won't kill you," scoffed the hunter. 

"Yes it would," Crowley insisted. His nails dug anxiously into the ground below him, leaving scratches in the stone.

"This isn't our first time, Scales. It ain't gonna kill you."

"I'm not drinking his damn blood," Crowley snapped. His chest rose and fell heavily, his blood rushing in his ears. The hunter raised an eyebrow, then looked back over his shoulder. 

"A last chance, Scales. Do it yourself," he said, while waving for assistance. Crowley's shoulders shook irrationally. Castiel stood to his feet with effort, leaning against the wall with one hand. Crowley didn't respond, and footsteps echoed as more hunters came, and Crowley looked up at the ceiling above him as if expecting Her to be there, offering Her help and sympathy, Her mercy. Of course, She didn't work like that, however.

The hunters came in and Crowley scrambled to his feet, but he lunged out when Castiel tried to step forwards. He was too hurt. Crowley couldn't ask him to risk himself in such a state already, when healing seemed to be off the table for them at this moment. Maybe they wanted them weak.

"Sit down, Castiel," he whispered. They locked eyes, Castiel's burning in defiance. There was only one way Castiel was willing to go down, and it was kicking and screaming. Crowley nodded his head, and urged Castiel back down onto the single bench at the back of the room, before turning to the waiting hunters. "I can't drink that," he insisted, and he prided himself on the steadiness of his voice. 

The hunters did not play games, it seemed. They rushed before Crowley could expect it, rushing upon him. His claws caught skin before his hands were yanked behind his back, and Crowley kicked out, thrashing. A hand curled into his hair, a cattle prod lingered in front of Castiel when he stood once more, and fingers pinched Crowley's nose. A glass pressed against his lips and Crowley kept his mouth shut tight. The person behind him kicked the back of his knees, lowering him down until he was effectively restrained, unable to do more than shake and arch this way and that, and then fingers dug behind his jaw and forced it open with disturbing ease. 

It burned. Holy and blessed and pure, and it burned its way down his throat and into his stomach, singed his tongue and his throat, and it made him keen and gag. They did not stop until it was empty. Until the glass was drained in his stomach, and then they left as quickly as they had descended, leaving Castiel with a glare and dropping Crowley onto the ground to retch and gag with pained tears streaming down his face. He shook uncontrollably, and it burned as if he was basking in pure Grace itself, seizing and burning through him, attacking and addicting. 

Crowley, when he would be able to think again, would come to find that humans were cruel, inventive creatures that rivalled the Almighty in terms of lacking mercy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, drama whoops my fingers slipped over the keyboard for 6k odd words whoops, not my fault.
> 
> Reminder that you can find me on Tumblr @veteranklaus. If you enjoyed me rivalling god and hunters in terms of doling out pain, feel free to leave a kudos or comment; it's always greately appreciated!


	8. True Nature

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to confuse you all; I don't know how to knit. I probably did not use the right terms in that, like, one sentence it comes up in later. Look forwards to that

"We need to discuss this because we are Her archangels," Michael said, voice cool and cold as he regarded Raphael and Gabriel. "And it is our duty, as Her angels, to spread Her will and follow it. And one of us is not doing that, and we need to discuss this."

Raphael sighed. His hands glittered with remnants of stars that he hadn't gotten to hang up in the sky before being pulled away to this meeting, and had not the time to consider where he might put them. "Michael, you know what Lucifer is like," he sighed. "You know he isn't as serious as he says he is. He is... confused. Conflicted. He needs our help; not our shunning."

Michael eyed him with distaste. "Whether it is Lucifer or not, the threat remains still," he stated. 

"There is no threat," Raphael insisted. "It is Lucifer, and he needs us for him. Not conspiring against him like this. He is our brother -"

"He is a threat!" Michael snapped. "He has strayed of his own free will. He had all of Her love, and he chose to throw it away and spit in Her face. He is not our brother, anymore, nor are any of the angels conspiring with him-"

"Michael, he isn't conspiring-"

"How do you know? If I didn't know better, it would sound as if you are trying to argue that what Lucifer is doing is right. He's questioning Her. It is not his right to do so. It is not his place to question Her, to disapprove of Her choices."

"I'm not - I'm not saying he's right, but have you not considered what he has said?"

"No. Because he is wrong."

"This is ridiculous." Raphael threw his hands into the air. "You talk as if you do not love Lucifer."

"You talk of him as if he deserves my love," Michael said, cold and cutting. He turned away. "It matters not. The Almighty has already chosen the fitting punishment for Lucifer."

"What?" Gabriel spluttered, speaking up for the first time. "What do you mean?"

Michael glanced at him. "He is to Fall," he said. "From Grace."

"What do you mean by that?" Raphael asked, eyebrows drawing together.

"Lucifer will no longer be an angel. He has forsaken the title and the power that She has given him, and shown that he does not deserve it. He will Fall from Grace, and he will Fall unto Hell, where he will be imprisoned for eternity."

"You - you cannot do that," Raphael blurted. "Lucifer has done nothing to warrant such a thing - it's impossible!"

"Quite possible, my dear brother," Michael said with venom. "And his followers and those conspiring with him will be punished accordingly, too." He turned, walking away, but he paused by Raphael's shoulder and eyed him from the corner of his eyes. "You might want to rethink your stance, Raphael. You're toeing a dangerous line. Hell has enough room for those who cannot live by Her word."

"-and they deserve none of our mercy, for they showed us none. Any questions?" Beelzebub asked, their eyes gliding over everyone. Crawley glanced around, then hesitantly raised his hand. Beelzebub nodded at him. 

"And we are supposed to kill them?" He asked. He did not remember who he was before the Fall, because the Fall had not happened so long ago at this point. He only knew Falling, and the torment of losing his Grace and only knew Crawley. 

Hastur snorted. "They will not hesitate to kill you, Crawley. It isn't enough for them that you were not their puppet. It is in your right to get your revenge for what they did to you. Do you not wish to avenge yourself?"

A shudder ran down his spine like a thrill. A fire burned in him, suddenly. Yes, he did want his revenge. What had he ever done to deserve rejection? But a part of him felt as if it was not built to fight. A part of him did not want violence, and he so ached for peace and forgiveness that he would come to never receive. But then a new, twisted part of him surged for it. Craved it. Needed it. His stomach burned, hot, heavy, putrid, intense, and the back of his throat felt as if someone had poured holy water down his throat. Hastur and Beelzebub were watching him intently, watching as he tried to speak but no words came out of his mouth. He was choking on something, and he couldn't breathe. When he tried to, he found himself gagging and retching on a stone floor, his hands curled into fists on the floor and his head hanging low from his shoulders. 

He was not in Heaven, nor in Hell. He was in a cell, his vision swimming like a spiral. He retched, shaking, and he felt as if he had whiplash. One second he was one place, and the other he was elsewhere. Perhaps he had never left Hell. 

He wasn't alone in the cell. Someone that he couldn't quite recognise but felt as if he should was sitting nearby him, his mouth moving silently. He was bright and it hurt Crowley's eyes to look at him. He turned his head away from him, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. The ceiling swam above him, far and unreachable and crumbling as if each breath that wheezed past Crowley's lips was a gust of wind that threatened to cave in the entire place. He wished it would. Oh, how he wished this entire place, wherever he was, would just cave in and collapse like some big demolition show.

He couldn't remember what had happened, but it hurt, and there were bandages on his hand, and he was covered in scales that he hadn't seen in a long time. He must be in Hell, then, if he was in such a demonic state. But the person nearby was not a demon, but an angel. Crowley's hands scrambled across the floor to drag himself further away. The angel didn't descend upon him, however, and he looked tired and hurt, and just as trapped in this claustrophobic cell as himself. 

He pressed the heels of his hands against his head. Why, why, why could he not tell what was going on? Why did searching through his thoughts feel as tough as wading through a swamp that was neck-deep? There was a fire in him, burning, licking his bones and boiling his veins, and there was a war behind his ribcage, shadow and light attacking one another, and his body was the battle ground, and it sure felt like it. He leaned back against the wall.

What did he know?

There were demons, but they weren't after him right now. Probably. And there were angels, but they had all been taken care of except for the one in front of him now, but he didn't seem to be a threat. An ally? And there was an angel that sounded like home and safety and he craved him. He was captured. Something was horribly wrong. Terribly wrong. He needed to get out of there, wherever there was, and he needed to find the angel - _his_ angel, his mind insisted - and he'd be safe. Obviously, though, he had not been able to escape. 

His ribs ached. He shook his head. Everything ached. The fire in him roared, furious, and he flinched as if he could get away from it. He wondered, distantly, if this is what it felt like when one's organs died. 

With difficulty, he stood. His knees shook. He staggered to the bars.

"Don't touch them," said the angel. Crowley startled, turning to look at him. The angel watched him with an intensity in all hundreds of his eyes, as if awaiting his response. Crowley pressed his lips together.

"What did they do to me?" He asked. His voice was hoarse. He wondered why. 

The angel blinked, glanced away, then glanced back. "You don't remember." Not a question. Crowley shook his head, and didn't say anything about not knowing this angel, who obviously knew him. Not a threat, however. He knew that.

"They took my blood," he said. "And they made you drink it. You've not been coherent for a while."

"Ah." Crowley looked away. There were identical cells opposite his. A fresh-faced witch sat across from them.

"Amelia," said the angel, as if Crowley needed to know who she was. Perhaps they had been talking since he had been incoherent, as the angel had said. "It seems the hunters have been out catching more people, too."

"Captured by hunters," Crowley muttered to himself. So that's what was happening. But how had hunters managed to overpower himself and an angel? Crowley might not like to fight, but he was sly. He could get out of any situation. Humans couldn't trap him. Except for, apparently, these ones.

"You don't remember that, either," said the angel, shocked, saddened. Crowley blinked at him. "Do you know who I am?" Crowley did not respond. He knew who he was, he just... his mind was too muddled, everything melting together like watercolours, and he couldn't place it at the moment.

"Castiel," said the angel. It rang a bell, but he couldn't find the bell. Crowley nodded.

" 'm sorry," he muttered. Castiel shook his head dismissively.

"You should rest. I don't know what angel blood does to a demon." He paused. "Other than this so far."

Crowley swallowed. He didn't think it had happened to any demon. Probably for a reason. 

"For a good reason, too." Crowley jumped at the new voice - he was sure there had only been the two of them - and turned around to see Lucifer, leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed. 

"What?"

Lucifer rolled his eyes and pushed off the wall. He prowled closer to Crowley and clamped a heavy hand onto his shoulder. He circled him and came to stand behind him. 

"Don't be an idiot, brother. Demons don't go around drinking angel blood for shits and giggles. There's a reason to it," he said. 

"Why don't you tell me what's going to happen, then? How did you get here?" Crowley asked him. Lucifer laughed.

"I don't know what's going to happen to you," he scoffed. "You're a first case, brother." He patted him on the back, then his lips spread in a grin. "Oh, I'm not here."

"You obviously are," Crowley said, unimpressed. Lucifer lifted a hand to pat his head.

"I'm in there," he said. 

"What?"

"I'm in your fucking head, Crowley." He smiled, barked a laugh, then circled Crowley. In the second that he was behind Crowley and he couldn't see him, he disappeared, gone as if he was never there. Crowley startled, then took a step back and another, until the back of his knees hit the back of the tiny bench in the cell and he fell down onto it. He set his head into his hands and swallowed when bile threatened to crawl up his throat, and then he wrapped his arms around his aching middle and doubled over. 

His name was Aziraphale. He repeated it to himself like a mantra. A blonde god who loved books and loved him. Who didn't understand modern technology but had been willing to try movies for Crowley, recently. Crowley burned the image of him into the back of his eyelids. Gentle, sky blue eyes, fluffy hair like a cloud, and soft skin, a perfectly round frame, a golden ring on his pinky, and a gentle, perfect mix of the warm beige colours that didn't strain his eyes. 

He remembered the first rainbow years ago. Aziraphale had been in awe at it. _It's just beautiful, don't you think?_ He had asked. Crowley had shrugged his shoulders. _Eh,_ he had said, _not anything magnificent, I think. There was so much hype to it; you think there'd be more... colours._

Aziraphale had frowned at him. _There is,_ he had said, _there's every single colour available to the human eye._ (The first rainbow had been more colourful than the seven-colour rainbows of today.) Crowley had snorted. _No, there's not. There's brown and yellow and beige and sapphire and dark blue._

_My dear boy, you must be joking. There are a lot more colours than just that, but not a single brown or a beige._

_Mmm... no. I'm not wrong._

Aziraphale had stared at him, dumfounded, and then he had disappeared for a minute and reappeared with an apple. _And what colour is this?_ He had asked. Crowley had rolled his eyes.

_Brown-ish and beige, Aziraphale. Stop playing around._

_Crowley, the apple is red and green. What - what colour is that grass?_

_What are you implying? It's the same colour as your 'green' apple. Stop messing around._

_How alike a snake's eyes are your own?_

_What do you mean?_

_I think... I think you might be colour blind, Crowley. Because this apple is not at all brown or beige, nor is the grass, and the rainbow doesn't have a hint of brown. Can you not see it?_

And as humans advanced and researched and, sure enough, revealed the fact that Crowley did not see the colours that Aziraphale could. Crowley did not necessarily feel bad like Aziraphale did; he couldn't miss what he had never had in the first place. But Aziraphale had always worn colours that were natural and tangible on his eyes, and he appreciated it.

Each time the battle in him raged a little more, he thought of him. A solid, steady face that promised safety and security, if he just pushed through a little more. Reality be damned, he focused on his angel. Until the image of his angel morphed, his smile turning into a horrified, wobbling cry, his eyes wet with pain, and his voice whispering _why?_ And Crowley sat on his hips, and his hands were stained, drenched thoroughly with glimmering gold blood that sated the rolling thunder in his stomach, and they were _enemies. It was only his true nature. He was a demon, and demons craved, deep down, for their justice and revenge on the angels who had kicked them out._ He could not have thought Crowley would not be like that. As much as he might love the angel, he was a _demon_. Whether he wanted to or not, he would kill Aziraphale.

The thought spurred him onto his hands and knees, a feverish retching mess, and Aziraphale's blood was hot and thick and delicious on his hands and his fingers and under his nails and in the trenches between each of his scales, and no matter how much he scrubbed his hands along his thighs to try and wipe the blood off, it would not come off. Hastur laughed, echoing in his ear accompanied by the smell of bitter tobacco that singed his nostrils, and he saw Aziraphale's eyes, clouded with pain and confusing and _why, Crowley, why?_

He didn't want to. Oh, he didn't, and despite the way it brought on a migraine, he prayed that Aziraphale wasn't dead on his bookshop floor with gouges from Crowley's claws, but at the same time he knew it was either Aziraphale or Crowley. Crowley would either kill Aziraphale or this starving beast in Crowley would devour him if not fed. 

He sat, now, with one hand curled into Aziraphale's coat, his legs pinned beneath Crowley's bony hips, and his other hand, with claws inches long and sturdy like a lion's, curled around his throat. But they were blocked. Something hard, something solid, something metal prevented him from tearing into his throat, and there was a hand on his wrist, crushing, and a hand on his shoulder, holding him away, and Aziraphale's face morphed into someone else, with dark hair and icy eyes, and Castiel was repeating his name. There was a cut on his cheek, crying gold, and Crowley's entire body trembled like an overexcited puppy with a treat inches from him as he stared at it, hypnotised by the way it rolled down Castiel's cheek. 

He recoiled so fast that he thumped against the wall behind him. 

He stared at his hand, and there was a drop of gold staining the inky black of his nail, and it was painful and burning and dizzying on his tongue. Castiel watched him warily as he sat up, scrubbing his cheek with the back of his hand and smearing gold across his cheekbone. 

"I'm sorry," Crowley said, a fleeting, slurred mutter, like someone sleep talking. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"I wouldn't trust him, if I were you."

Crowley's half-lidded eyes turned to Lucifer. He was sitting with his legs crossed beside him, knitting. Crowley didn't know he could knit. "Why?" He asked, barely above a breath. He was so _thirsty._

Lucifer's tongue poked out from between his lips as he worked on threading the needle through a loop of wool. It was thick and fluffy and red, like human blood. Crowley wanted to use it as a pillow. Lucifer hummed thoughtfully but didn't speak until he got the needle through, but when he did, he turned on Crowley with an expression as if he thought Crowley was the most stupid person ever. "He's an angel. And you're a demon. And you're locked in a cell, and he's being powered up by holy water. And you're laying around like a ragdoll talking to yourself."

" 'm not."

"What did I tell you earlier?" 

Crowley lazily shrugged. "Dunno."

"I'm in your head."

Crowley closed his eyes. "Oh, don't shut me out like that, brother," Lucifer whined. He heard the knitting needles clack together as he set them on the floor. "I'm just being honest with you. Honesty is supposed to be good, right?"

"I don't care," Crowley grunted. He turned his head away and peeled his eyes open to look at the ceiling. His eyebrows drew together. "I've not see 'im drink."

"He's been fed twice. You're just too out of it. Daydreaming about your lover boy?" Lucifer teased.

Aziraphale, crying silently, and not even mad with him. Just confused. Guilty for the pain Crowley would be in when he came to and realised he'd killed him. 

Crowley flinched as if he had been struck. "No."

"Shame. What kind of brother would I be if I couldn't tease you? Well, no matter. So, you beat up Castiel."

Crowley shook his head. "No. No. I don't... No."

"Well, you _did_. What you mean is that you don't _want_ to, not that you didn't. 'Cause you did."

Crowley covered his eyes with his hands, even though they were closed. His breath caught in the back of his throat.

"Doesn't matter, though. Demon nature, and all that. Can't blame you." Lucifer clapped his hands down onto his thighs loudly and Crowley jumped, then groaned. 

"Leave me alone," Crowley whined. 

"Rude. After I got incinerated in the sky I thought you'd be more excited to see me." 

"Not _now_." Crowley turned onto his side, placing his back towards Lucifer. His nails scratched along his scales, hands curling around his upper arms. 

"Fine. _Fine_. I'll let it slide, just this once, because I love you. And I think you should probably get up now," Lucifer said. Crowley furrowed his eyebrows.

"Why?" He asked.

"Hear that?" Lucifer paused a moment. Crowley heard only the rushing blood in his own ears, and Castiel's agonisingly loud heartbeat. "Thud. Thud. Thud. Hunters are coming. Maybe they'll throw you into the pits now; I don't think you'd stand much of a chance at the moment, though, if I'm honest with you."

Crowley cracked his eyes open and turned around. By the time he did, Lucifer was gone and there was only Castiel, his jaw set as he watched shadows dance on the hallway outside the bars. He lifted himself painfully into a sitting position. He caught Castiel's glance and he offered a nod as if that would reassure him of his lucidity in that moment. He saw a glimmer of relief in Castiel's eyes, and the angel nodded back, a subtle bob of his head.

_And he might be very aware in that moment, but he was also very aware of how strong Castiel smelled, how that little cut had let the scent of his blood envelope the entire cell and make his mouth water, and he was very aware of it._

A tray slid inside. A full glass of holy water, less diluted - they had grown gradually more pure, now to the point where Crowley feared being near it - and a glass with less than a shot of liquid gold in it. Crowley's fangs ached, and his mouth watered, and his eyes zeroed in on it. The gate hadn't even closed by the time he reached it, throwing it back into his throat. It burned like a fire, worse than holy water, and he almost feared that it would burn through his flesh and dissolve his throat and his neck. Almost, because he found himself not caring, lost to a high like drugs. His back hit the wall and he slid down, and Castiel plucked the glass from his lax hand before he could drop and smash it.

It was like the sea, with large waves that carried him further out, further into the bliss, and then in an instant the waves would grow to sixty feet tall and would crash on him, drag him down and drown him, waves buffeting into his ragdoll body, but he would deal with the pain it brought for the bliss it brought too, as fleeting and brief as it might be. 

Castiel moved to sit further away from him. Crowley didn't blame him. Not when he smelled so tempting. 

His tongue dashed out across his lips, picking up any last stray drop, and then he succumbed to the violent wave that crashed into him.

Crowley's footsteps echoed loud down the dark, endless corridor. The sound bounced off the walls that he could not see, and he kept walking. The endless darkness did not scare him, did not deter him. He kept walking, and at some point he closed his eyes - or maybe he didn't, for nothing actually changed. His footsteps slowed, strides grew shorter, and he opened his eyes. There was nothing around him, but he knew that right there, less than two feet from his toes, there was a pit. An endless pit that, should he tumble into it, he would not stop falling until Hell saw fit, or until Beelzebub or one of the higher ups saw fit. He had been in there a few times. Each time had been less pleasant than the last. Now, though, he stood alone at the top of them, staring down as if he could see it. 

It was like a tunnel, and when falling through it one could either hear nothing or hear everything; every scream of every tortured soul, every snuffling of every hellhound, everything. It was deafening, whether or not it was silent or echoing the sounds of every circle in Hell.

Crowley turned to put his back to it. Watching him stood Beelzebub and Hastur and Dagon, and a crowd of unimportant demons, and there, among the faces of Hell stood Aziraphale. His wings were twisted and broken behind him, burnt and singed, and golden tears dripped down his face. His eyes were cold, dead, his skin pale and frozen, frost blooming. He stepped forwards, shuffling and breaking through the crowd, and then he stood but a few inches from himself.

Crowley couldn't breathe. His heart pounded in his ears as he took in Aziraphale, his clothing in tatters. He looked as if he had been buried alive. His lips moved but he couldn't vocalise what he was trying to say.

Aziraphale took a step forwards, and Crowley staggered back. He took a step forwards, and he took a step back. Floor disappeared beneath his heels and he almost fell; he threw out a hand, curling in the dirty lapels of Aziraphale's coat and holding himself above the endless pit. Aziraphale didn't budge.

"Why, Crowley?" He asked. "I loved you. I loved you. Why did you do this?"

"I - I didn't - Aziraphale -"

A tear, black as ink, slid down his face. "You did. You did. You did this." 

He stepped forwards, and Crowley fell. And he took Aziraphale down with him, into that endless abyss that echoed of screams and smelled of smoke.

A scale sat in the palm of his hand. Slippery with dark blood that stained his hands, the skin on his side ached fiercely from where he had scratched it off. It glittered in the dim light of the cell and dripped, staining the ivory skin of his arm and leaving a snail trail down to his elbow, where it dripped off and left tiny little splatters on the floor below him. 

Snakes shed. By default, Crowley was cursed to shed, too. Rather inconsistently, he could go a decade without shedding, while other times he would do so multiple times in one year. He would argue that on average, it happened about once every year, or twice every three years. He would retreat home and into his bathroom, and he would slightly fill his bathtub with some warm water that stayed the same temperature because Crowley willed it to do so. He would have a large tub with rocks and sand and a few tree branches and some pinecones, all that he could rub against. While a regular snake might take one or two weeks to shed, Crowley's last for two weeks at the least, and usually went on for four or, occasionally, five weeks. He had no idea if that was a side affect of simply not being entirely snake or not, but he felt it was incredibly unfair. 

Shedding, however, was not the case of scales falling off - although this one hadn't necessarily _fallen_ off - and he had never lost a scale before. It was odd, now, to stare down at it in his hand, almost taking up his entire palm. He twirled it around, rubbed his thumb across its surface. His skin ached, pulsing where it had been pulled off, throbbing, and he felt oddly sick. It felt odd to blink. 

He dropped the scale, let it clatter to the ground. His skin was on fire, burning from the inside out. Without him even noticing, his hand gravitated to the back of his shoulder, and his nails began to scratch, sharp and stinging, catching the smooth edges of his scales and burrowing under them. 

"Crowley."

His eyes snapped up, sharp and intense and unfocused, landing on Castiel. Castiel, Castiel, Castiel. Friends with the Winchesters, and slightly Aziraphale, and not malicious. He looked better than the last time he remembered seeing him; less bruised, a little more awake but still drained. The cut on his cheek was gone. Crowley had no idea how long it had been. 

"I don't think they'll be able to heal that." He seemed unsure of his words. Crowley wondered if he just wanted to speak to him, test his sanity. Crowley huffed a breath as if he had been holding it. His skin burned like his organs as he tugged at the scale he had chosen to be victim to his assault. Maybe, Crowley thought, if he drowned out the scent of Castiel and Castiel's blood with his own, he wouldn't feel the urge to dig his nails into flesh and tear. He didn't respond, fearful that if he opened his mouth his fangs would be free and he'd snap like a rabid dog. 

Castiel held out his hand slightly. A few inches closer to Crowley at the far opposite end of the room, and Crowley slammed back against the wall as if fearing Castiel would strike him. He shook his head. "Don't," he hissed. "Don't." 

His skin was pale, his hand calloused, his veins rushing loudly beneath his skin. It would hardly take any pressure at all, and he could do it gently, surely. It wouldn't hurt at all. He would just pierce his skin with his teeth, and let it bubble up to the surface, and he only needed a little, a tiny drop or two, to sate the forest fire in his guts. He wondered if it would devour and turn his bones to ash, and he would just slip right into his snake form, so easily. It would make it easier to wrap himself around Castiel's forearm and just gently dig his fangs in, and Castiel wouldn't even notice and it would be fine. 

"Crowley."

Castiel was looking up at him, and Crowley realised he had stood. He spun around on his heel and turned abruptly, and he began to pace. He didn't spare a look at Castiel. He paced until his feet ached, and two more scales fell to the ground, and he shook his head, swinging it left to right, and he left.

"You - you gotta go, Castiel," he murmured between his teeth. His eyes flitted back to him. "Gotta… gotta get away." He ran his hands through his hair, stretching his arms right up. 

Castiel rose to his feet. "I don't think that's a possibility, or a good idea," he said. Crowley laughed; a dark, bitter thing. He shook his head as if what Castiel said was amusing.

"Cassstiel," he said, and the s staggered on his tongue. "I want to kill you so badly."

Castiel startled slightly at the revelation, although it wasn't exactly a secret. They both knew it. They had danced around it, and Castiel had shuffled away from him whenever he got too close and didn't seem entirely lucid. Castiel swallowed, his Adam's Apple bobbing.

"I know you won't," he said. Crowley barked a laugh.

"No, you don't," he said. He looked at him now and he could see it, see how he'd do it, could imagine Castiel thrashing beneath him, his eyes going distant and milky, unfocused, imagined his blood hot and staining beneath his nails, leaving gold rivers between his scales, and burning his tongue and his throat to paper-thin skin. He could see it all now. Castiel would struggle. He'd hit out, and try to fight back, he'd kick and scratch and punch, but Crowley would be so savage, so brutally blind with bloodlust that in the end, he might be an inch from slipping out of Crowley's grasp when Crowley struck, cracking his head off the wall, or tearing his throat, or his wrists, or beating him until he stopped moving and then digging his fangs into his forearm and draining him until it burned Castiel to death, too. 

Most importantly, though, he could imagine his blood running down his throat in thick rivulets, staining his mouth and chin gold, and the floor and the walls and his costume, and how mind numbingly blissful it would be. Like Heaven all over again. His eyes fluttered closed, and he had to work to pry them open again.

"You won't," insisted Castiel. Crowley's eyes burned into him, fiery amber, yellow devouring his whole eye rather than just the pupil. 

Crowley walked away from him, and he lowered himself onto the floor, back pressing against the wall. He pulled his knees up to his chest, legs crossed at the ankles.

"You better pray Sam and Dean find you fast," he said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed, as always! Thank you so much for all of your support; it means the world to me <3


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